It can be risky to cut back too far on your caloric intake. In fact, it can be downright dangerous. But when checking out diets for quick weight loss, if you don’t mind taking risks with your health, the 500 calorie diet is very popular. But, be careful, even among low calorie diets for quick weight loss, the 500 calorie diet is very extreme.
The reason for the popularity is that it will help you lose weight very quickly. Among people who are looking for quick weight loss, low calorie diets are quite common. But even among low calorie diets, 500 calories is at the low end of the scale.
First, for a definition…For a diet to be considered low calorie, the arbitrary cutoff point is 1200 calories per day. Anything below that is considered to be a low-calorie diet. Clearly the whole idea of a low-calorie diet is to lose weight quickly, but again - it can be quite dangerous so it should always be thoroughly planned with a nutritionist or your family doctor.
It’s well known that the best way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you eat. You can do this by burning more, or by eating less. Your body needs a certain number of calories just to exist. If you’re not eating enough, the theory is that your energy needs will be taken from the fat calories in your body.
The problem is, our body is very smart. It won’t just keep burning the same number of calories and taking the excess from fat. Your body doesn’t know that you are on a diet. It will think you’re starving. To help keep you alive, it will cut way back on the number of calories that uses. To do this it will slow down your metabolic rate and will start eating away at your muscle mass - to get it’s needed calories.
For the long-term, this is very dangerous. It’s your muscles that burn calories (far more than fat) and if you lose muscle mass, it can have a highly detrimental effect on your body and on your ability to keep weight off in the future. As one of the diets for quick weight loss, it works…but only for a little while.
Your gender, activity level, height, body type, genetics, and overall health will determine how quickly and how badly your body is affected by a 500 calorie per day diet. For short while, 500 calories per day may be enough for some of us.
It’s likely, that you’ve been taking in 2000 to 5000 or more calories per day. Suddenly dropping to 500 will immediately move your body into starvation mode. As it should. For most of us 500 calories per day IS literally starving our bodies. To conserve energy and to help keep you alive, your metabolism will slow way down.
Your body will adapt and learn to live on 500 calories per day…until the day that you run out of calories to burn, then you will die.
Fortunately, most of us stop our diets before that happens. Which means that when your diet is over and you go back to your old eating habits (as most of us do) you will have a sudden gain in weight. You will actually gain more weight, than you would have had you not gone on your low-calorie diets for quick weight loss. Plus, you will have lost a great deal of muscle mass which makes it harder to maintain your new weight and keep off the excess weight in the future.
Using a BMR/AMR calculator is a very efficient way of determining what your healthy, daily caloric level should be. In other words, it will tell you how many calories are necessary to support your weight, your health and your lifestyle. Once you know how many calories are necessary to maintain the status quo, you can subtract 500 calories per day and you will have constructed one of the ideal diets for quick weight loss success.
Since the body size and mass of men and women is so obviously different, this means that they need a different number of calories to survive. While the average woman may eat 1200 to 1300 calories per day their male counterpart needs from 1500 to 1600 calories per day. That’s why it’s so important for you to consult your physician before starting any diet. Safety must come first.
Finally, when it comes to diets for quick weight loss…the 500 calorie per day diet is a popular one. But, keep in mind that it can be very dangerous. Clearly, it will help you to lose weight. But the weight loss is only temporary. It’s going to come right back as soon as you stop the diet. Unless you are under the constant supervision and monitoring of a doctor, you should never cut back your calories that dramatically.
To learn more about the best ways to lose weight and to get YOUR free copy of my “Fast Weight Loss Tips!” mini-course - check out my website right away!