Brides Given OK to “Medically” Starve Themselves

Wow!  Just when I think they can’t possibly come up with another life-threatening, body-destroying disaster of a crash diet, a new one makes headlines.

Here’s today’s Yahoo! “News, “The K-E Diet: Brides-to-Be Using Feeding Tubes to Rapidly Shed Pounds.”

Really?!  

Here’s the scoop.

Brides who need to shed the final 10-15 pounds to fit into their wedding dresses are now foregoing food in favor of a tube inserted up their nose.  The tube tracks down to their stomach, where they “ingest” a mixture of fat and protein (no carbs at all) for up to 10 days.  The mixture contains about 800 calories.  It’s “medically supervised” and costs $1,500 for 10 days.

Really?!

The “medical community” is encouraging brides (who are already stressed due to unrealistic expectations and pressures for their wedding day) to starve themselves in the days before the wedding?!

This kind of nonsense makes me crazy!

Here’s my favorite part of the article.  The one bride that they spoke to about this says she, “felt tired,” while on the “diet.”

Really?!

At 800 calories a day of goo being ingested through your nose?  You were tired?

But wait, it gets even better. 

The article goes on to say she lost 10 pounds and is looking forward to her wedding this summer!

She’s going to maintain a 10-pound crash-diet weight loss until summer?

Really?!

More likely, she will gain 15 pounds between now and her undisclosed wedding date and then attempt to do the diet again in the days leading up to the wedding (dropping another $1,500).

She also did it because, “”I don’t have all of the time on the planet just to focus an hour and a half a day to exercise…”

So instead, she, and I’m sure thousands just like her, drop $1,500 at a doctor’s office, insert a tube up their nose and simply don’t eat (that’s not stressful?) for up to 10 days.

It was, “emotionally stressful,” not eating and walking around with a tube up her nose, explaining to people she wasn’t sick…just dieting.

Ummm, exercise reduces stress, gives you more energy and helps you lose body fat…just sayin’.  

And you don’t have to explain to everyone what you’re doing.

Has the “medical community” (I use quotes because I don’t think that doctors who advocate crash diets can be considered medical professionals) completely forgotten that this kind of crash dieting has long-term consequences?

By feeding our “now, now, now!” mentality, they are setting these women up for long-term disaster.

Drastically cutting calories for the short-term inevitably leads to a backlash of ingesting additional calories, leading to more weight gain.

These women are being set up for a binge-purge cycle…especially if they have a history of Anorexia or Bulimia.

I would love to see the follow up report of her actual wedding (and, if her wedding isn’t til summer, she has plenty of time to drop 10 pounds in a healthy manner and keep it off after the wedding!)

For women jumping on this bandwagon just before their wedding, they are likely to:

1.  Pass out while walking down the aisle because they’ve been starving themselves for 10 days.
2.  Binge at the wedding and during the honeymoon, resulting in gaining back the weight they lost plus at least another 5 pounds, if not more.

Do brides really need something else to add to the stress of creating, “the best day of their life?”

Not eating, taking in only 800 calories and upping the wedding budget by $1,500.

To me, it’s a prescription for disaster, not glamour.

Please, please, please, if you are a bride, take a moment to consider your long-term health.  You’re already planning thousands of details.

Remember to plan for yourself.  If you’re like most, you’re taking at least a year to plan this event…plenty of time to be good to yourself and take care of your long-term health.

You deserve better!

Really!

P.S.  We can help you with a meal plan that is tailored to your goals (and includes real food) and an exercise plan to help you handle the stress of the wedding and set yourself up for long-term success!  Call us at 783-1241 for a FREE Consultation.  You deserve better!  Really!