The Negative Effects of Your Weight-Loss Diet
Updated August 19, 2016
Dieting is a resolution for the new year, or for one of your milestone birthdays, such as the twenty-fifth, thirtieth, fortieth, or fiftieth. We all want to look good and feel great, but it is hard to get those pounds off once they are packed on. With too much to do every day and too little time, exercising and dieting have gone to the wayside, and we need to get back to what is important, our health!
Losing weight is at the top of many people’s priorities. Shedding pounds and getting healthy is great, but it shouldn’t come at a cost to your dental health.
One of the most important things to your overall health is moderation.
Moderation is when you can still partake in a particular food or beverage, but do not eat or drink too much of it at one sitting. You also are only to eat or drink the item once a week, or month, or quarter depending on your current eating habits of the item. For example, some people drink a sugary coffeehouse coffee every morning. If you were to drink it in moderation, you would cut back to once a week and on the remaining days have a black coffee with no sugar. It isn’t about cutting the item completely out of your diet, it is about enjoying it on special occasions or when you have reached a goal.
With all the diets and shortcuts people are taking to get thin, moderation is often overlooked. However, your diet doesn’t only affect your physical health and weight— it also affects your dental health.
That being said, it’s important to take into account how the sacrifices you make for weight loss may have detrimental affects on your teeth.
While it’s necessary to stay on top of brushing and flossing regularly, it’s also crucial to discuss with a dentist how your diet may affect your oral health.
Be mindful of sugar in shakes and juices
Two very popular weight-loss diets use blends of juices and milkshakes in order to help individuals lose weight. One major problem you might not have considered is the amount of sugar in juice cleanses or milkshake diets, which is ultimately bad for dental health.
Juicing affects your dental health in several ways: it messes with your insulin, and is very acidic. Normal levels of acidity in fruits and vegetables are okay, but the concentrated doses in juice cleanses has negative impacts on your teeth.
Make sure to brush your teeth within half an hour after drinking juice blends and milkshakes. If you let the bacteria sit any longer, it can cause serious damage to your teeth.
Meal replacements make for poor dental health
Another diet to watch out for is the use of meal replacements. Like juicing and milkshakes, meal replacement products tend to be very high in sugar and low in fat. This often results in increased tooth decay, which calls for subsequent dental work.
If it’s an option for you, preparing your own meal replacements is an ideal way to avoid bombarding your teeth with sugar. Although this might require a lot of self-control, your teeth are sure to thank you in the long run.
Diets that are high in protein and meant to cut out carbs can also have detrimental effects to your overall health and wellbeing. These diets can result in ketosis, for example, which is known to cause bad breath. This will make it difficult for people to stand close to you in conversation and be a detriment to your overall health and happiness.
Raw food diets impact dental hygiene
Raw foods are good for you right? You are eating healthy, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds. How can this be anything but good for your mouth and teeth? When you eat a full raw food diet only, you are embarking on a couple of issues.
First, if you eat this diet for an extended period of time, you will get cavities, even if you are the best brusher and flosser there is. The reason for this is the bacteria that cause cavities and decay in your mouth and teeth form into colonies when you are on a raw food diet. Even brushing and flossing cannot lower the bacteria count.
The other reason cavities form when you are on a raw food diet is because you are getting the majority of calories from fruit. Fruit is naturally sweet because it has organic sugar within it. This sugar can cause problems such as tooth sensitivity, erosion of tooth enamel, and many cavities.
Much like the juicing diet, consuming only raw foods can be hard on your teeth.
These diets tend to be heavy in fruits and vegetables, and although you aren’t sacrificing your fiber intake as in a juicing diet, you are still getting a concentrated dose of sugar from fruits and vegetables.
It’s important to be careful with your oral hygiene and diligent about cleaning the bacteria from your teeth when you’re on these high-sugar diets.
Don’t sacrifice your dental health for weight loss
We all want to look good and feel better. A healthy body is also a healthy mind and by eating healthy and getting regular exercise, you are being kind to both your body and your soul.
The drive for a healthier lifestyle is understandable. A combination of diet and exercise is the best way to go about becoming healthier and losing weight.
Exercise is often underrated. People believe they can lose weight strictly by dieting. This is not the case. You have to eat a balanced diet as well as exercise at least twenty minutes a day to shed the extra pounds and increase your stamina.
It’s important to be careful when dieting. Not all dieting trends work, and sometimes the sacrifices in nutrition are detrimental to your overall health. Since dieting often uses sugar to supplement the lack of carbs, make sure you’re responding appropriately and being mindful of dental health.
As a healthy individual, it’s important to stay informed about what you’re eating and how it may affect your overall health. Losing all that weight will feel like less of an accomplishment if you sacrifice your smile along the way.
