Is it really possible to lose ten pounds in just a couple of days? Tons of ads and even posts online swear to this. They have their own products to sell and new diets to share to get it done. It’s tempting, especially if you’ve been struggling to shed some pounds to no avail.
It’s honestly not a matter of whether it’s possible to lose a lot of weight in such a short span of time, though. It’s more of whether it’s a good idea to do so. Crash diets can leave you nutritionally deficient, for starters. It is also said to slow down your metabolism. In some cases, it can also be bad for your heart.
And not just that, losing so much weight so quickly can also have a negative impact on your hair and skin. Some might not be bothered by this, but if you want to look great after being lighter, you should be. This explains why some people look sickly after shedding weight quickly. They hardly look like the Victoria’s Secret and Calvin Klein models that they dreamed to be.
But losing weight should be worth the setback in the skin and hair department, right? Wrong. Here are a few of the bad things crash dieting can do to your skin and hair to enlighten you just how things can turn out if you lose a lot of weight in an unhealthy manner:
Acne
Rapid weight loss often results in acne. As nutritional deficiency leads to hormonal imbalance, the skin reacts by breaking out. This is especially true if you’ve been sticking to a low-fat diet to shed some pounds.
This diet hampers vitamin A absorption which is a major ingredient for better skin health. As a result, you’re also not nourishing your skin enough to keep it in top shape.
Dull and Weird-Looking Skin
There are two reasons why your skin looks dull after a crash diet. The first one is the fact that the nutritional deficiency it causes deprives your skin of the nourishment it needs. And if your skin isn’t getting the vitamins and minerals it needs, it won’t look healthy and glowing.
The stress that rapid weight loss brings about is the second reason why it makes you end up with dull skin. Stress can definitely affect how your skin looks, so this shouldn’t be a surprising fact.
Aside from dullness, your skin can also look weird in some cases. Some diets might require you to load up on high carotenoid food items because they have negative calories. Doing this can result in an orange tinge on your skin because of the nutrient buildup. Unfortunately, this look isn’t healthy, so you might want to avoid such as well.
Scaly Skin
Fat and nutrient deficiencies can also cause scaly skin since your skin isn’t getting the ingredients it needs. In some cases, it can also be because of the compensatory hypothyroidism that chronic rapid weight loss causes.
Sagging Skin
When you lose weight quickly, the body thinks that it’s being starved. As a result, it burns your fat storage to keep you energized.
Some people actually try fad diets to achieve this state thinking that their excess fat will be burned rapidly if they starve themselves. This isn’t the case, however. Most of the time, the body burns lean muscle instead of fat. Muscle is easier and quicker to burn so it makes sense that the body will expend them first during a crisis. Starvation is certainly considered a crisis by the body, so muscle loss can also be expected from crash diets.
What does your muscle have to do with your skin, you might be wondering? Rapid muscle loss tends to result in sagging skin. With the fast pace of losing muscle mass, the skin might not be able to tighten up as quickly while you lose the muscles that once stretched your skin. This will cause your skin to droop.
Hair Loss
Thinning hair is also a common consequence of rapid weight loss. Experts often attribute it to the stress as the body can stop hair growth as a reaction to extreme duress. Nutritional deficiency can also prevent the body from executing a proper hair cycle.
More Body Hair
While crash diets can cause you to lose hair on your scalp, it can also make you hairier in other areas. The body creates peach fuzz as a reaction to its inability to keep the body warm due to the lack of fat reserves. This might not be an issue for some people, but as peach fuzz can grow just about anywhere in your body, it can be bothersome and embarrassing for others.
Your Skin and Hair After Losing Weight
Whether you mean to lose weight quickly or not, rapid weight loss can result in these bad things. Dealing with the consequences can be stressful but there are good ways how you can manage them. Seeking professional skin care services from Hollywood Nails and other reputable skin aestheticians could help.
With healthy weight loss, however, you can actually get healthier skin and hair. This is why your skin glows and your hair has more luster when you exercise and eat better. So if you want the best results for all of your weight loss efforts, you should consider taking the healthiest route.