With more and more people finding themselves overweight, it has become increasingly important for people to find the right solution to their weight loss needs. For some, a very low calorie diet may be the right route to take. If this is you, you will want to consider what it entails and if you can healthily maintain this type of diet. Because a very low calorie diet is so restricting, the first thing you must do is talk with your doctor about it. He or she will give you guidelines on if you can use this type of diet as well as how to proceed with it.
The first thing to realize is just how restricting this type of diet can be to you. The average low calorie diet is that of 1500 to 1800 calories per day. A very low calorie diet, which is also known as VLCD, is 800 to 1500 calories per day. This very low restriction on the amount of calories you can consume is enough to cause most people a little concern.
For this type of diet to work, you will be required to eat a very low amount of food. Usually, you will be provided with a substitute meal through the diet coordinator. One or two of your meals will be consumed in this manner. Every type of food that you consume will need to be monitored for what they contain as well as what they don’t contain. Since your body uses calories to power each of the things you do from simple tasks to much more challenging tasks, the foods that you do consume on this diet must be designed to provide for optimum health.
This type of diet is appropriate for those that have a body mass index that is over 30. That means that you would be moderately to severely obese. With that considered, you should take into consideration if this diet is proper for you. Most patients will lose between 40 and 50 pounds over a three month period. Yet, there is no evidence that you won’t have to work hard to maintain that lose with regular diet and exercise. Some patients have experience symptoms of fatigue and constipation when being on this type of diet.
The main benefit of a very low calorie diet is that it allows for fast weight loss that can improve the health conditions of someone that is severely overweight.