liquid diets, smoothies, and shakes

jessinicole1808

I was thinking of starting a liquid diet for a week or so. I read an article about liquid diets and a type of diet where you drink shakes or smoothies for breakfast and lunch then eat a light dinner. Is this healthy? Has anyone tried this if so what were your results and do you have any smoothie recipes to recommend?

FitPhillygirl

I would never recommend a liquid diet to anyone unless it was for medical reasons such as someone who is unable to have solid foods.

ninerbuff

Liquid diets have one of the highest weight regains. Wouldn't recommend it nor encourage it.
Learn to count calories with actual food. That's how you learn portion control.

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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

abatonfan

Liquid diets don't teach you how to keep the weight off in the long term. Though you might lose a ton of water weight quickly, you risk losing a ton of muscle as well and could slow down your metabolism (let alone that the heart is a muscle itself...). Once you get off this diet, you might not have the skills necessary to keep the weight off, and coupled with decreased muscle mass from a very low calorie diet, you could easily gain back all the weight (and more).

ana3067

Why? Have you failed to pee for weeks or something? Dangerously dehydrated?

auddii

I was on a liquid diet for a week after I had my tonsils removed. I lost several pound and gained it back as soon as I started eating normal food again. It was also miserable. The only reason I survived is that I spent most of the day passed out on pain meds. Definitely had no energy for doing much of anything.

futuremanda

I will say that if you are...

Eating (/drinking) in a healthy calorie range

Getting some decent nutrition

Have a good reason for doing this (keeping in mind that ANY way of eating with a calorie deficit would result in weight loss, so THIS way has to be right for you for reasons other than "I read it would make me lose weight")

Have a plan for transitioning into more sustainable eating later

... then sure.

But you don't NEED to follow any specific thing. Your food does not have to be liquid, or low carb, or fat free, or made at home, or unprocessed, or whatever. Your total calories just have to be in a certain range.

I DID start on shakes a few years ago. It turned my breakfast from toast or sugary cereal, into a thing that involved zucchini, sunflower seed butter, some dairy (milk and... maybe also yoghurt? Maybe a bit of banana? I don't remember, which is funny, as I made one a day for a few months) etc.

It taught me to start doing SOME food prep (beyond "pour in bowl" or "insert in toaster") and got me a routine going. It was easy, so I wasn't like "screw it, I'm going to Subway" or whatever. I chose it for those reasons. Better nutrition. Easy enough to stick to. Improved my habits a bit. Gave me a routine. I later used the routine and new habit to expand into other options. But it wasn't magically making me lose weight because it was liquid... I lost weight because I controlled my calories overall.

And if you do this, I'd recommend changing "light dinner" to "robust dinner" or "light dinner + lovely evening snack". Put some full fat dairy, peanut butter, veggies, greens, fruits, real food in your blender, not like, iced cubes and skim milk and 3 strawberries or something. Get protein and fat. Keep your total calories above 1200.

Be prepared to test many recipes and variations before you find things you like, too.

nesian_twin

They never worked for me in the long term and most shakes contain too much sugar and it is sugar that will make me forever hungry and craving for real food which = fail. However, nothing wrong with having a good healthy protein smoothie for breakfast in the morning!