A VERY LOW CALORIE DIET
VLCD is also known as A very low calorie diet. This is a diet program where the normal meals of the people are replaced with soups or health drinks. The total daily calorie intake is limited to 800 despite the efforts of making the diet nutritionally balanced.
This kind of diet is usually not given to people. This is used for private proposes or the doctors recommend it to people whose weight is a major and a dangerous health issue. This kind of diet is to be taken only under strict supervision. They generally result in ketosis because they are a high fat and high protein diet.
This kind of diet cannot be taken for a prolonged period of time. It has to be of short duration and in certain situations the meal replacement may only be used for three meals a day. This brings about a steadier and a more manageable loss in weight.
There are different kinds of VLCD diets available. Few of them are Medifast, Optifast and The Cambridge Diet. Medifast is a program tried and tested by over a million people and is propagated by J.H.University. strictly speaking it is outside the definition of VLCD as its meal replacement plan is round about the 1000 calorie mark. This puts the body in a mild state of ketosis. Optifast is generally a program which is very difficult to complete but is available in abundance in hundreds of clinics in the US and Canada. The Cambridge Diet is a UK based diet program and it has a calorie level less than 600 mark, which makes it high in protein and low in fat.
Filed under: Diet Programs
