Liquid diets are rampant in the West.
A number of celebrities swear by it and following their trend even common junta has experimented with it.
It turns out that a lot of people were able able to shed a good amount of fat by following a liquid diet.
But as well know, nothing is black or white. Everything is a different shade of grey!
So we will be describing the concept of liquid diets in its entirety and let you be the judge of it.
What are liquid diets?
Okay, so being on a liquid diet is consuming only liquids for your meals.
These are the things that would be in liquid state under normal room temperatures.
For example – Water, juices, ice-creams, milkshakes, tea, coffee, smoothies etc.
There are various types of liquid diets depending on the extent of inclusion of solid foods in your diet.
You could be on a complete liquid diet (also called as clear liquid diet) by completely giving up on solid foods, on a semi-liquid diet for having solid foods on only half the occasions you would have a meal.
Anything and everything is allowed.
For example –
- I have a friend who wished to lose weight because he had piled on a lot of fat within a few days of absolute inactivity.
So he halved the quantity of food he used to have for lunch and would only have one or two types of liquids for dinner and nothing else.
I will reveal what happened to him in the later part of the post.
- Also, doctors recommend you to go on a liquid diet before and/or after you undergo a medical procedure.
That is for a completely different reason altogether, but certainly an example of a liquid diet.
Now that we have the ‘liquid diets’ foundation in place, let’s answer the question that most of you are here for.
Yes. And No.
Well, it depends. Like most other things do!
Depends on –
Whether you’re made for liquid diet or not?
Can you survive on a liquid diet?
Can you control your urges?
If the answers to all the questions above are positive, then certainly liquid diets work for you!
But wait. Wait!
Before you embark on the liquid journey, we sincerely advise you to go see your doctor and what views he/she has on this and if your doctor approves visit a dietician and do only what he/she tells you to. Nothing less, nothing more.
Liquid diets aren’t lethal or dangerous but they can do some major temporary damage to your health and unless you have a lot of sick leaves pending, do not do things on your own without expert guidance.
Now that we have told that there are potential drawbacks of liquid diets, you’d simply abuse us if we didn’t tell you about at least some of them.
So here we go.
Like we said, they are temporary and not lethal or fatal. But still caution should be exercised.
Here are the potential trade-offs associated with liquid diets.
Nutrient Deficiency
While it highly depends on the sort of liquids you are consuming during your venture, this is quite a common issue with most liquid dieters.
But this could be quite an issue.
Say, you do not get sufficient amount of your Vitamin A from the liquids that you are taking, your eye health will start to deteriorate.
Or say, your liquids lack in calcium, your bones will become weaker.
Although all these effects are imminent in cases where your liquid diets are not complete in supply of nutrients, they will happen only if the particular nutrients are lacking for long periods of time.
It is advisable that once you start experiencing illnesses or phenomena that are caused due to lack in supply of particular ingredients, you immediately get off your liquid diet and see you physician for further assistance.
Constipation
This is really common among liquid dieters and if you think a bit hard you’d get it if you haven’t got the explanation already!
No fiber!
Liquids cannot provide you fiber!
You need fiber for smooth bowel movements and any shortage of it means you will be constipated.
This is the same reason why we advise people to eat whole fruits over having fruit juices.
The best solution of this issue is to have a portion of fruits and vegetables even if you are on a clear liquid diet. This is will be enough for you to not become constipated.
Irritability
Say, I force you to drink only your soup and go to bed without giving you anything else to eat.
You can have as much water as you wish. But that’s it! Nothing else to eat.
How would you react?
Well, if I was in your place I’d be fumed!
My first thought would be to physically attack this person. No one messes with my food!
Now similar scenario, you voluntary have only a bowl or two of soups and that’s it! That’s your dinner.
Trust me, you would react similarly, just that you wouldn’t have anyone to blame to hit!
It is really difficult to follow a clear liquid diet hence people give up within 2-3 days.
So if you do not like any tampering with your food or telling you what to eat, the best you can do is follow a semi-liquid diet where you do not completely eliminate the solids, but only just increase the amounts of liquids.
Now to tell you about what happened to my friend I mentioned earlier in the post.
He lost around 3 kilos of his weight in 2 months.
But he couldn’t lose belly fat and had so many instances of constipation during those 60 days!
So there you have it! Liquid diets are great for some, not so great for some and really tricky for the rest of us.
If you have ever been on a liquid diet or have any queries about the same, do comment so that we could mutually benefit.
Stay Healthy! Eat Nutritious!