Setting the Record Straight on Laxative Diets

by Dennis K
weighing scale and tape measure weight loss

There’s no easy way when it comes to losing weight for good. It’s even made more challenging when you’re not seeing any changes, especially when you’ve been trying to do so for years. As soon as desperation and impulsiveness take control, we end up taking shortcuts, even if it means health risks in the long run. Taking laxatives is one example.

Defining laxatives

Originally, laxatives are drugs meant to cure constipation. They function in the large intestines, while the foods you eat are digested in the small intestine. Constipation happens when we fail to meet our body’s required intake of vegetables and fruits. Such drugs are intended for people suffering from severe constipation, may it be caused by the disease itself or just a symptom, especially if it’s been going on for over four days.

Laxatives for weight loss

Laxatives are one way some people do in order to lose weight fast. Since these drugs help with your bowel movement, your body ends up losing water. Unfortunately, water loss is interpreted by many as similar to weight loss. It’s not.

laxative capsulesA lot of people take laxatives for temporarily getting rid of abdominal fat to gear up for an important event where fitting in a tight dress becomes the topmost priority. But what most people don’t realize is that resorting to laxatives for a quick weight loss solution takes its toll on overall health. As this becomes a habit, it can pose some serious medical danger.

Medical experts agree that laxatives as permanent solution for losing weight is a myth that needs to be counteracted immediately. The reason is pretty much simple: When we take laxative for weight loss habitually, we end up injuring our muscles, nerves, and digestive tract for good.

It’s also important to point that by using laxatives for losing weight also results to losing great amounts of minerals, vitamins, electrolytes, fiber, and water. Consequentially, your body suffers from dehydration.

Of course, being dehydrated isn’t a good thing. If this keeps on happening, this could even become more serious, like scary kind of serious. When your body loses water, you can’t think of it as means of losing fat. Worse, you will regain the weight you’ve lost. It’ll even backfire causing you to gain more weight, which is tragic because that’s the last thing you want.

bottle of laxative capsules

Experts believe relying to laxatives for weight loss can be considered an eating disorder, basically because such action can bring about medical problems like tremors and relentless weakness. If you believe this is ideal for you, this is clearly a disorder that needs to be addressed.

Finally, dehydration caused by laxatives intake can cause permanent deficiencies in the body. These deficiencies can contribute to the development of serious health problems such as thyroid issues and diabetes, which can harm your health and lifestyle in ways that are hard to imagine.

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