Celery is packed with nutrients, but the water and celery diet is drastic.
The water and celery diet is a drastic weight loss diet in which your body essentially starves itself. Such fasting can flush toxins out of your body and help revitalize it, but careful monitoring is required. Although weight loss has been achieved with this diet, severe side effects are possible and weight loss is highly likely to be unsustainable.
Celery and Water: The Facts
Celery contains about 6 calories per stick. The process of digesting celery, which contains cellulose that is difficult to digest, an equal number of calories will be burned. In effect, celery is a negative-calorie food.
Water makes up about 60 percent of your body weight, but it holds no nutritional value, it only hydrates you.
When consuming only celery and water, you are technically fasting---or starving the body---which means you will lose weight but probably not in the best way possible.
Nutritional Benefits
Water is essential for hydration but must be enjoyed as part of a healthy diet.
Both water and celery benefit those who consume them. Celery is rich in vitamin C, which supports and protects the immune system; is high in fiber; and contains blood pressure-reducing compounds called plathides, which relax smooth muscles in the walls of blood vessels to allow them to dilate. It is also rich in potassium, which is good for your heart. Water flushes toxins out of your body's main organs, carries nutrients to your cells, and provides a moist environment for your nose, ear and throat.
Starvation Mode
Despite the benefits of both celery and water, this diet will force your body into starvation mode. When your body believes it is starving and is deprived, your metabolic rate, which helps your body burn more calories and lose weight faster, slows. Your body will hold onto fat and start to break down muscle mass for fuel. When you start eating normally again, your body will retain the fat from your food as protection in case you starve it again. This means that even if you do lose weight on the water and celery diet, there is a high chance you will put that weight back on, and perhaps a little more too.
Effects
A starvation diet such as this is highly likely to result in low energy levels, irritability, trouble sleeping, headaches, stomach aches and impaired concentration levels. It could also affect the appearance of your hair, skin and nails. The recommended daily calorie intake for a woman is 2,000, and the recommended calorie intake for a man is 2,500. The calorie intake for a diet such as this will be greatly depleted from this healthy recommendation and is not a healthy way to lose weight.
Expert Advice
Running is an effective way to lose fat.
Before making any changes to your diet, always consult your doctor for advice on the best course of action. According to the website, theofficediet.com, in order to lose weight safely and keep the weight off, the recommended calorie deficit a day---that is, calorie intake minus the number of calories expended in daily activity---is 500 calories. This should result in a pound of fat loss a week. Exercising daily will increase the speed of weight loss, as well as tone your body and increase lean muscle mass, which in turn, will eventually increase your metabolic rate.
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