Weight loss is a common goal, with many seeking effective programs for health and aesthetic reasons. Among the various diets, liquid diets have gained attention, promising rapid results. This article explores the 14-day liquid diet for weight loss, examining its types, effectiveness, potential benefits, risks, and crucial considerations.
What is a Liquid Diet?
Liquid diets involve consuming most or all daily calories from liquids rather than solid foods. These diets vary in their restrictiveness and purpose. Some programs replace certain meals with liquids, while others substitute all solid foods with liquids. The basis of these diets for weight loss is reducing your calorie intake. As a result, your body should start to burn the excess fat you’ve stored. Unless you consume fewer calories than those you burn every day, the scale won’t move the way you want it to.
Types of Liquid Diets
Several types of liquid diets exist, each with unique characteristics:
Meal Replacement Liquid Diets: These diets involve substituting some or all meals with protein shakes, either store-bought or homemade. Some people find this a simpler way to lose weight as it doesn’t require much thought or planning. Meal replacement shakes are often lower in calories than typical meals. They are designed to contain all the nutrients your body needs to function, including macronutrients (protein, carbs and fat) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) (2). Some weight loss programs use these shakes to account for your entire calorie intake for up to several months (3).
Detox Diets and Cleanses: These liquid diets involve consuming specific juices or drinks that claim to eliminate toxins from the body (4). Unlike meal replacement shakes, these programs typically rely on a few natural ingredients like juices from certain fruits and vegetables and other botanical ingredients. Because of this, these diets may not contain all the nutrients your body needs.
Read also: Is a liquid diet right for you?
Medically Prescribed Liquid Diets: Clear liquid and full liquid diets are prescribed for specific health reasons.
Clear Liquid Diet: The most restrictive, allowing only clear liquids like water, apple juice, tea, certain sports drinks, and broths (5). These diets may be prescribed before or after certain surgeries or if you have digestive problems. On this diet, you’re not allowed to consume shakes and smoothies that contain protein and other nutrients. You can’t eat anything, as that’s the entire point of this diet.
Full Liquid Diet: Less restrictive than clear liquid diets, allowing most beverages and foods that become liquid at room temperature, such as popsicles, Jell-O, pudding, syrups, and some shakes (6). Full liquid diets are prescribed for similar reasons as clear liquid diets. Yes, yogurt is a good option on a full liquid diet. It’s a good source of protein and can provide some variety in your meal plan. There’s some controversy surrounding whether yogurt is actually a liquid, as it can contain solid pieces of fruit or bits of granola.
Fasting: You can fast for one to three days by consuming water only or a combination of water and sometimes herbal teas without sugar (13). Alternate day fasting is a more lenient approach that allows you to consume a small number of calories, which for some people are mostly liquid, on alternate days while having regular solid food on the other days (9).
Effectiveness of Liquid Diets for Weight Loss
Liquid diets can lead to weight loss due to reduced calorie intake. For a liquid meal replacement diet, the total number of daily calories may range from 500-1,500 (7, 8). Research has shown that both low-calorie (1,200-1,500 calories per day) and very low-calorie (500 calories per day) diets using liquid meal replacements can be effective for weight loss.
Read also: Explore the pros and cons of liquid diets
Studies comparing low-calorie diets of solid food versus liquids have found them equally effective when calorie counts are the same (15).
Potential Benefits
- Rapid Weight Loss: All-liquid diets can help you lose weight quickly if done correctly (3).
- Reduced Calorie Intake: Replacing meals with liquid meal replacements can reduce calorie intake (2).
- Pre-Surgical Preparation: Physicians may prescribe liquid diets before surgeries like colonoscopies and bariatric surgery (11). The liquid diet serves several purposes. First, it helps you lose some weight before surgery, which reduces the risk of your laparoscopic surgery having to be converted to open surgery.
- Post-Surgical Recovery: Liquid diets are advised after surgeries like gallbladder removal and bariatric surgery (12).
- Digestive Relief: Liquid diets may be recommended for digestive problems, including diarrhea and vomiting.
Potential Risks and Side Effects
Despite their restrictive nature, these diets may show initial results. However, liquid diets also carry several risks and side effects:
- Nutrient Deficiencies: A liquid diet is generally followed by weight regain when you start to eat solid food again. Furthermore, it can create severe nutrient deficiencies. You also need to make sure you get all the nutrients your body needs.
- Muscle Loss: Liquid diets are low in protein and can make you lose a lot of lean muscle mass as you lose weight.
- Hunger: It’s quite hard to ignore hunger pangs as liquids don’t fill you up as much as solid food does and it can be difficult to disregard the feeling of hunger.
- Eating Disorders: Restrictive diets can trigger eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder (BED) (7).
- Side Effects of Water Fasting: If you’re going to do a water fast, you should be prepared for side effects such as headaches, fatigue, dizziness, bad breath, nausea, and constipation. As previously mentioned, drinking only water for a few days can lead to dehydration. About 20 to 30% of water is derived from foods you consume, as are most of your electrolytes (6).
- Weight Regain: Your body is in starvation mode, so it starts to conserve energy, meaning that when you resume your normal eating habits, even if you go back to healthy foods, it’s likely that you’ll regain some or all of the weight you lost (8).
- Constipation: One side effect of a liquid diet is constipation, which may be due to the low fiber content of most liquids (23).
- Gallstones: Very low-calorie diets (500 calories per day) may lead to a higher risk of gallstones than low-calorie diets (1,200-1,500 calories per day) (7).
Important Considerations
Before embarking on a 14-day liquid diet, consider the following:
- Consult a Healthcare Professional: You should always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or your specific situation. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of content in articles.
- Nutritional Completeness: Ensure you get all the nutrients your body needs.
- Sustainability: Consider whether replacing foods with liquids will help you reduce your calories and if it’s a sustainable diet strategy for you.
- Individual Needs: Liquid diets are not for everyone. Several groups of people should not consider a liquid diet, such as pregnant or nursing women, children and adolescents and those who are underweight (21, 22).
- Financial Implications: Commercial meal replacement shakes can often be more expensive than traditional solid foods.
Modified Liquid Diet
Our modified liquid diet involves a 14 day period of fasting on 4 to 5 high protein, meal replacement drinks and a 100 to 200 calorie dinner. During this time, you will consume between 500 and 700 calories a day. The reason we use protein is that it forms the building blocks of the body and is responsible for the general health of the body, including healthy bone and muscle development. Protein takes longer to digest than other elements in food and for this reason it has the ability to balance blood sugar levels.
Post-Surgery Liquid Diet
Soon after surgery with Advanced Surgical Associates, solid foods will make you feel ill and will put unnecessary strain on your stomach. In the first few days after surgery you will be on a clear liquid diet. That means anything translucent is acceptable except for sugary, alcoholic and carbonated drinks, of course. The goal during this period is to keep you hydrated. All foods have some degree of water content and since you will not be eating anything solid you have to drink more fluid than you normally would. Don’t drink your entire days’ worth of fluid right away. Sip your fluids consistently, all day long to remain hydrated and balanced.
Read also: Risks of Liquid Diets
*An important note on artificial/no-calorie sweeteners: You can consume artificially sweetened drinks during this time. They will likely make bland drinks more tolerable. However artificial sweeteners have no nutritional value and may make it harder to lose weight.
After the first few days, you will be able to transition into a modified liquid diet. Again, you will be avoiding any high sugar, alcoholic and carbonated drinks - these are bad for your stomach pouch and your diet. This liquid diet will expand your options dramatically. You’ll be able to drink low fat milk and protein shakes to boost your protein intake. You’ll also be able to drink some diluted fruit juices, broths, soups and more. You may also continue to consume clear liquids in addition to the suggestions below. Yogurt (plain, no fat). *A quick note on soups. All soups must be strained or blended to remove any chunks. Canned soups tend to be very high in sodium and calories. Please check the nutrition label carefully before choosing your soup. Ideally, make your own soup with fresh ingredients from the produce department. Bear in mind that your tastes may change after surgery. What you liked in the past may not be palatable today.
The transition to soft foods represents a huge leap toward normalcy after surgery. At this point, you’ll have a whole new world of options and a plenty of ways to trip up, too. Following your post-surgical guidelines is the single best way to avoid any pitfalls and keep your diet on the right path. As with all phases of the bariatric diet, drinking enough water to stay well hydrated is crucial to success. Further, getting the right amount of protein is important.
Supplementation After Weight Loss Surgery
Supplementation after weight loss surgery is a very important part of your health and successful resolution of weight-related diseases. The degree to which you will have to supplement your diet with vitamins and nutrients largely depends on the procedure that you undergo. No matter the procedure, you will have to supplement, to a degree, immediately after surgery as you will be on a modified and restricted diet.
Gastric bypass patients will require the greatest degree of supplementation of any of the major bariatric procedures. This is because of the malabsorption due to bypassing part of the small intestine. Since the walls of the small intestine are very sensitive and therefore absorb nutrients, vitamins and calories, shrinking the surface area available drastically reduces nutritional absorption. This means that gastric bypass patients are more prone to nutritional deficiencies than are those who have undergone purely restrictive procedures such as gastric sleeve and gastric banding.
The supplements that are most often needed are› Protein - you will have many protein options after surgery. Each of these nutrients has very specific functions in the body and a deficiency in any one of them can cause a host of other problems. As an example, one of the most important nutrients - protein - is necessary for healing and also allows a patient to lose more weight because its density makes it harder to digest. Because most bariatric procedures severely restrict food consumption,it becomes very difficult for the patient to eat enough protein through their diet alone. Most often, patients will turn to protein shakes to fill the gap.
Patients will visit our office several times after the procedure and they will be tested to make sure that they have no nutritional deficiencies. That, combined with a comprehensive supplementation plan provided by our surgeons and dietitian, should mean that each patient will receive the level of nutrition that is necessary to maintain healthy weight loss. While many patients will be able to taper off their supplementation, it is not recommended that they eliminate it entirely. While too much supplementation can be a bad thing, it’s also important that deficiencies do not arise. Patients who keep a food journal are more likely to consume the nutrients they need every day. Smartphone applications are particularly useful, offering a snapshot of nutritional intake on any given day.