Contest bodybuilders
Contest bodybuilding is as much a test of extreme willpower as of anything else. Frankly, it’s not healthy to starve the body down to such super low bodyfat percentages (a male will commonly need to be 3-4% bodyfat to compete; a female 7-9%). But, as it is part of the sport, it is a necessary evil. Normally, contest bodybuilders will follow a progressively more restrictive diet starting 12 or more weeks out from their show. However, sometimes they get behind schedule and need to get caught up. Maybe they were fatter than they thought to begin with, maybe it’s their first show and they don’t know their body well enough, maybe their coach is just an incompetent. Any number of things can throw off a contest diet and getting into shape sometimes takes extreme measures. Crash dieting can get a bodybuilder back on track, or at least closer to making contest shape.
Other weight class athletes/other athletes
Although bodybuilders lose extreme amounts of fat (and frequently dehydrate) for appearance reasons, many athletes have to do the same to make it into their weight class (or simply to perform better). Think wrestlers, powerlifters and Olympic lifters, etc. Although it would be far better for such an athlete to keep their true weight closer to their goal class and just dehydrate slightly to make it in, that doesn't always happen. Sometimes weight class athletes have to drop a tremendous amount of weight (and the more fat they can drop, the less they have to dehydrate) quickly.
Other athletes may also have a need to drop fat/weight quickly to improve their performance. Think about an endurance athlete who may improve their power to weight ratio by dropping weight or someone of that nature. I should note, and I’ll come back to this, that dehydration beyond even a small level can really destroy performance capacity (extreme dehydration can cause death) so the crash diet should be used several weeks prior to the main event to drop a few pounds of fat such that normal hydration can be reattained before competition.
An upcoming special event I imagine many women and men reading this lession can relate to the concept of an upcoming special even like a wedding or high school reunion where they feel the need to drop weight (and some fat) rapidly: either to impress old schoolmates or to fit into a special outfit for the occasion. I imagine models, whose financial well being requires that they maintain a certain shape or weight, could get into a situation where they needed rapid results. A 10-20 pound total weight loss accompanied by a many pounds fat loss can help to get you in shape for the occasion.
Kickstarting a more moderate diet
One of the bigger problems associated with the long slow approach to dieting is that people get frustrated with the rate of weight loss: it’s always slower than they want it to be. Seriously, if someone is losing one pound per week, they want to lose 2, if they are losing 2 pounds per week, they want to lose 4. If they were losing 10 lbs per week, they’d want to lose 20. Chalk it up to normal human behavior, the ‘immediate gratification’ society we live in or whatever explanation makes you happiest.
Frankly, I don’t care why people think this way, I simply know that they do. By starting with a few weeks of crash dieting, weight loss is kickstarted and this can give the necessary positive reinforcement needed to keep folks moving ahead. As well, since the crash diet described here is based around whole foods (many approaches are geared around various supplements and powdered drinks), it helps with the initial stages of food reeducation. By gradually increasing intake of ‘better’ foods on top of what the crash diet already contains, dieters can get on the track to making permanent changes in their eating habits. I’ll come back to this when I talk about ending a crash diet.
Other
I’m sure creative readers can think of other possible times when a crash diet approach might be valid or appropriate. One that comes to mind is the case where someone has to have surgery and needs to drop weight rapidly for it to be done safely. I simply want to point out that anyone in that situation must be medically monitored during the diet phase and shouldn’t be using this or any other diet lession to self-prescribe a diet. Another situation that has come up recently is folks who just want the
dieting phase to be over as soon as possible. That is, they’d rather be really miserable for a short period of time than kind of miserable for a longer period of time.
nice work