That’s a lot of weight loss, Batman!
If you spend enough time scrolling through Reddit threads about keto dieting and weight loss, you’re bound to come across the “whoosh” phenomenon. Many dieters describe this effect as sudden but significant weight loss.
Doctors and nutrition experts have debunked this concept before, but the whoosh effect is far from frivolous. Still, diets aimed at rapid weight loss are rarely healthy, and protocols recommending them should be taken with a grain of salt.
The ketogenic diet, known by the abbreviation keto, has been used in medical practice for over a century. But it reached peak fad status in the internet age, as bloggers lured people in with diet siren calls demanding all-you-can-eat bacon.
High-fat, low-carb keto therapy was originally prescribed to epilepsy patients because it helps stabilize neurons in the brain over time and prevent seizures.
When strictly adhered to, this diet induces a biological process known as ketosis, which trains the body to run on fat instead of its usual fuel, glucose and other sugars.
When you cut out carbohydrates (not just bread and pasta, but also certain fruits and vegetables) and replace them with high-fat foods like meat, fish, dairy, and oil, your body has no choice but to burn fat for energy instead.
The diet’s mystical status was further enhanced when people online started chatting about the purported “swoosh effect” and the instantaneous results of eating in the mirror.
“I talk about the whirring noise so people don’t get discouraged when they see the scale stuck for weeks,” one Redditor wrote in a weight loss thread. “You can then lose a lot of weight overnight, as your body sheds the weight of water it was holding on to and reveals your true weight.”
Another commenter wrote, “I describe the ‘woosh’ as my body feeling safe enough to drop the weight. It seems to persist, confirm that the lack is a new pattern of behavior rather than a fluke, and then seem like, ‘Okay, we’re not in danger. Feel free to let it go.'”
However, experts have a different view.
Registered dietitian Gregory LaFortune, MS, RDN, LD, told the Post that the hissing effect is “a real-life experience, but it’s often misunderstood.”
“People see it as sudden fat loss with the keto diet,” he explains. “Rather, the shoo effect is thought to be due to changes in water mass due to the keto diet. It’s not a sudden loss of fat; it’s a sudden loss of water mass. The fat loss occurs gradually.”
Because of how the body stores carbohydrates, water weight removal can be more pronounced on a keto diet.
It’s in the name: Carbo-hydra-Tess. They are stored in the body as glycogen, a collection of glucose molecules. For every gram of glycogen stored, at least 3 grams of water are cached with it.
“This is why people on low-carb keto diets lose water weight,” LaFortune says. “This differs from other diets because it may not restrict carbohydrates as strictly as the keto diet.”
Indeed, rapid weight loss can occur from a very low-carbohydrate diet, often within the first few days. But it’s the weight of water, not fat, as some proponents of the Husch effect claim.
Chasing the whistling effect is not only a lost cause, but can also lead to serious problems such as dehydration.
Some people who follow the keto diet talk about diarrhea, which can dehydrate the body and strip it of important nutrients, as evidence that results are being achieved.
Some people say that hissing was caused by other harmful means, such as yo-yoing between fasting and binge eating, or drinking alcohol for its diuretic properties.
According to Healthline, “Each of these approaches aims to dehydrate your body. While you may feel temporarily thinner, there are no lasting effects.”
In general, Lafortune recommends setting goals that prioritize long-term health, not just immediate changes.
If GLP-1 fever has taught us anything, it’s that rapid weight loss can be very harmful to the body.
Whether it’s due to diets like the keto diet, medications like GLP-1, or another cause, LaFortune counts muscle loss, higher risk of weight regain, slower metabolism, overall loss of strength and energy, and sometimes severe nutritional deficiencies as potential side effects of rapid weight loss.
Suffice it to say that the swoosh effect is not the overnight miracle that some people believe. Crash, bam, kaboom.
#Shoo #Effect #Beware #Keto #Diet #Myths #Problems