Very Low Calorie Diet

Very Low Calorie Diets (VLCD) are a type of diet in which caloric consumption is usually limited to under 800 calories a day. Very Low Calorie Diets can be undertaken via medical supervision or they might be one of the fad diets like the grapefruit diet in which dieters lose weight by eating only one type of food for a period of days or weeks. Dieters following a medically-managed VLCD generally replace their regular meals with shakes, bars, or soups. The meal replacement items are usually as nutritionally complete as possible and counselling is often offered as part of the plan. Doctors and nutritionists use a VLCD diet to bring about rapid weight loss in extremely overweight patients whose health is compromised. Dieters usually follow a medically managed VLCD for a matter of weeks and are carefully monitored to ensure their health isn’t suffering as a result of their diet.
Prominent Very Low Calorie Diets include the medically managed Medifast plan which has slightly higher caloric consumption than most VLCDs, Optifast, and the Cambridge Plan. These diets are successful in helping extremely overweight individuals whose body mass index (BMI) is greater than 30 lose about three to five pounds a week. As long as these diets are medically managed and there is plenty of counselling available to help patients transition to a normal diet, most nutritionists think that these types of diets can be a useful tool for helping extremely overweight individuals suffering from weight-induced health problems control their weight effectively.