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Why crash diets are doomed to fail

Authored by Jacqueline Tourville

Studies show that the average American woman thinks weight loss is her #1 health goal, and she’s tried over 126 diets. But over 70% of us are overweight. How can all three facts be true?! The answer is simple: most diets are “crash diets” — and crash diets don’t work. In fact, they cannot work, because they fight our very biology. 

The good news is that when you understand why crash diets don’t work, you’ll finally grasp the kind of diet that will.

What’s a crash diet?

“Lose 15 lbs in 30 days!” “Lose 10 lbs in just 3 weeks!” These types of sensational headlines are a typical red flag of a crash diet.  

The creators and marketers of quick-fix weight loss diets have plenty of reasons to mislead you. The global weight loss industry is worth over $200 billion—and growing fast. In such a competitive marketplace, diet promoters make increasingly exaggerated claims just to stand out. After all, would anyone buy a book or program that promised, ‘Lose one pound per month’?

So beware of any diet that has these three features:

  • A claim of rapid weight loss.  
  • A supposed secret to this new method.
  • A lack of any real evidence.

The 7 reasons crash diets don’t work

There are 7 reasons these crash diets can’t work.  One has a big word; we’ll save it for last.  These reasons will show us the real path to a healthy weight.

  1. Low calories lower metabolism. Most crash diets involve dramatic calorie reduction.  When you do that, your body thinks you’re starving. So it slows down the rate at which it burns calories – its metabolic rate.  
  2. Loss of muscle mass. When your body isn’t getting the calories it’s used to, it literally begins to eat you – it begins to burn your muscles for energy.  The loss of muscle lowers your metabolism further – because muscles burn energy faster than other cells – priming your body to add back weight when you stop the diet.
  3. Water weight loss is quickly regained. On a calorie-restricted or low-carb diet, the body breaks down stored glycogen into glucose to maintain energy levels. Glycogen is stored in the liver and muscles, where it binds to water. When the body converts glycogen for energy, the water is released, making “water weight” responsible for the initial pounds lost. However, as soon as you eat more carbs or increase calories, the body rapidly replenishes glycogen stores, pulling water back in and reversing weight loss.
  4. Hormonal imbalances. When we’re overweight, we have hormonal imbalances – and those imbalances block weight loss. We have to resolve the imbalances first…but we don’t. And there are so many sources of hormonal imbalance besides excess weight.
  5. Unsustainability. Crash diets require self-denial that we cannot sustain. It isn’t just a problem of our emotions or willpower – most of them are nutritionally deficient, which means the longer we’re on them, the greater the harm.
  6. Emotional and energetic blocks. Whether our weight gain created emotional problems, or our emotional problems caused our weight gain, by the time we have been overweight for years, we suffer both. Our lifestyle habits tend to fall in line too.
  7. Homeostasis. All six of these problems are parts of a bigger problem: your body wants to maintain its equilibrium, even if that’s not healthy. Crash diets don’t just fail to address this homeostasis: they make it worse. And the longer you have carried your excess weight, the greater power your homeostasis has.

Does this mean weight loss is hopeless?

If you’ve struggled with excess weight for many years, it’s easy to feel hopeless about ever taking that weight off. It’s ironic, really. At the same time the crash diet industry is so strong, we also have a cultural consensus that obesity is a disease, and there’s nothing you can do about it — except perhaps to take Ozempic.  

These conflicting messages are all resolved with a few clarifying ideas:

  • Obesity is not a disease in the traditional sense, but it is a “state of illness” that impairs our health and needs effective therapy.
  • Ozempic is not a cure-all.  It doesn’t even work well for most people.  But it does show that normalizing insulin metabolism is essential to weight loss — and for many other chronic illnesses.
  • Healthy weight loss can be achieved by shifting our homeostasis away from an unhealthy to a healthy equilibrium. That takes time – not crash diets. But it’s possible.

A little insight into homeostasis and why it matters

Homeostasis is the goal of our body’s self-regulatory functions. All our cells, organs and systems are communicating constantly to maintain a “steady state” in which the cells have what they need and everyone is functioning well. Importantly, it includes our gut bacteria, fungi and viruses.  It’s a kind of ecosystem, always in flux, but the parts are in balance.

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The difference with the biology of the body is that once an imbalance becomes entrenched, the body defends it, even if that’s unhealthy. This is true for a range of functions, from pH to metabolic setpoint to neurosis and compulsion.  

Medical science recognizes the centrality of homeostasis, but the idea rarely appears in medical practice.  That’s mostly because conventional medicine is organized around separate systems of the body and medical specialists for each one. Homeostasis by its nature requires a holistic perspective.

So what kind of diet does work?

Achieving long-term, healthy weight loss requires gently shifting your body’s homeostasis into a balanced state. A gradual, sustainable approach—where “slow and steady wins the race”—is the most effective strategy, whether you’re looking to lose a few pounds or have struggled with obesity for years. Here are the key elements to success:

Food. What you eat needs to support hormonal balance, especially for insulin and cortisol, the major hormones. Check out our recommendations for how to eat to balance cortisol and foods to balance blood sugar. You will also want to prioritize foods that encourage a healthy microbiome and avoid processed foods.

Nutritional supplements. These are essential to provide vital micronutrients and metabolic co-factors, directly support hormonal balance, rebalance the gut bacteria and support healthy metabolism and sustained fat burning.

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Movement. Our biology depends on movement for hormonal balance, healthy digestion and detox. You don’t have to be an athlete, or go to the gym, but movement is critical to health.

Sleep. Most women don’t sleep well or long enough. This is directly disruptive of hormonal balance and detox, but also of mental and emotional health.  

Stress response. Most women experience chronic stress due to all the demands on them as professionals, caregivers, family leaders and super-multitaskers.  Their cortisol dysregulation derails their autonomic nervous system and hormonal balance, and makes healthy weight loss impossible.  

Emotional balance. About 40% of women have suffered multiple adverse or traumatic childhood experiences, and these have been proven to have long-term negative effects on their health. There are throughlines from childhood trauma to health habits and behaviors, as well as more direct damage to the body itself. One implication is that many of our actions (and reactions) are driven by factors below our awareness.  

Your goal is not skinny.  Your goal is healthy. 

In a realistic approach, you assess your health in each of these areas, and prioritize your efforts.  There’s no need make everything perfect — please resist that impulse! — it’s the cumulative score that matters. Your priorities will change over time, too.

Our advice is to aim for steady progress that yields at least a pound of weight loss a month. If that seems too slow, realize it’s 36 pounds over three years — a lot! You probably didn’t gain your excess weight overnight… perhaps you’ll need half as much time to take it off.  

Your goal is not skinny. Your goal is healthy. With the WHN approach, you’ll feel stronger and more vital within a couple of weeks, and these feelings of health and vitality will grow quickly stronger and more reliable. Healthy weight loss will follow — and it will be sustainable.  

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Last Updated: February 1, 2025
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