The fad started many years back, but we didn’t hear too much about it until an investigation revealed that diets high in protein could cause liver, kidney, and other health problems. Of course, not all liquid diets are so high in protein, but there are diets that are specifically meant to be high protein diets. The combinations of high protein and low carbohydrates, especially for an extended period are the cause of many of the health issues related to the high protein diets.
There are some diet plans such as SlimFast that aren’t quite so restrictive or full of just one or two nutrients. In fact, SlimFast gives you a guideline based on how much weight you want to lose, and they do not recommend the sole use of their shake for more than about ten days at a time. It is recommended for longer term use, limit your shakes to one or two a day, and have one to two healthy meals based on the meal samples that are provided. Of course, with the newer products such as soup and pasta, it makes it easier to combine the two. The regimen used today includes both exercise and the consumption of six to eight glasses of water daily, both very important for losing and maintaining weight loss.
On the other side of the coin are the liquid nutrition drinks for people who need to gain weight or build muscle for sports activities. If you are looking for these products in the store, be very careful. Products such as Boost and Ensure are dietary supplements, not weight loss products. In fact, these products probably have more calories than the 90-calorie average in a can of factory prepared SlimFast.
Will these liquid diets work? They are good only for short-term use or for a maintenance program after a healthy, nutritional weight loss program. Although a nutritionally balanced liquid diet drink may provide the calories, vitamins, and minerals which are necessary for healthy living, they do not provide the substance required to prevent hunger pains. For this reason alone, substituting one or two meals, breakfast and lunch or dinner alone, making sure the other meal are a low calorie and low fat, and balanced meal of baked or broiled poultry or fish adding a healthy portion of steamed green or yellow vegetables. In this way, you are learning to eat differently while losing weight; when you have reached your goal weight, your body will clue you in of how much it can tolerate without gaining the weight lost.
Where does that leave the liquid diets? They are unhealthy as a substitute for regular food, they don’t provide substance, and worst of all, they do not teach new methods of eating that will allow you to maintain the new weight. Only nutritional supplements such as SlimFast that come with a balanced eating program are able to provide that kind of regimen.