With warmer weather on the horizon and summer just around the corner, ladies beware the bright idea of strict diets generally accompanies the thoughts of sunshine and swimsuits, but consider the unpleasant side effects if you take your weight loss too far. Your hair isn’t something you should exchange for weight loss.
Any number of things can affect hair growth, including when the body is malnourished. When your diet is lacking in proper nutrition, or when you make drastic changes to your current diet, hair loss can result. It’s your body’s way of telling you that something’s wrong.
Not having enough of a certain vitamin in your diet can affect the quality of the hair and contribute to hair loss, but extreme dieting is the number one cause of diet related hair loss. Taking up a “fad diet” or making any drastic changes to the way you eat may help you achieve instant result on the hips, but weight is not the only thing you’ll be shedding.
Many extreme diets can cause severe health issues, including hair loss. Extreme diets that cut out whole food groups such as the Atkins Diet, or heavily restrict the amount and types of food you eat such as the South Beach Diet, or any milkshake replacement, pill-taking diets are completely unrealistic, are dangerous in the short and long term. Also, if you’re using laxatives as a weight loss booster, your body may not be able to retain all the nutrients it needs to keep your body and hair healthy, even if you take supplements for hair growth, and can cause a myriad of problems.
You may have heard that some diet-related problems, like hair loss, are reversible but the fact is that genetic hair loss affects women too. Generally women won’t experience permanent hair loss until menopause but a number of factors can trigger it to occur earlier, such as extreme diets and weight loss.
Female pattern hair loss isn’t the same as male hair loss, which can sometimes lead to baldness. Most of the time women’s hair loss is limited to a generalised pattern of thinning hair which strips them of at least 50% of their normal volume. Hair loss affects 4 in 10 women at some stage of their life and it can be controlled and managed with the proven hair loss treatments for women, but female pattern hair loss isn’t something that can be reversed through a change in lifestyle.
In short, losing too much weight in a short space of time can wreak havoc on your locks. Eating too little or completely cutting out one of the food groups can cause nutritional deficiencies, which in turn cause the body to react by shedding hair and instigate to permanent types of hair loss.
If you’re looking to lose weight, it’s best to avoid extreme diets that promise instant results and instead stick with a healthy eating plan that features foods that will promote general health and the health of your hair. Eating an array of foods in moderation and getting regular, vigorous exercise at least four times a week will give the body its best chance of slimming down and toning up without the unpleasant effects of rapid weight loss. If you have trouble motivating yourself to visit the gym then a personal trainer might be a better option - someone that will push you to achieve your goals. The same goes for nutrition - consider visiting a nutritionist to let you know exactly what's best for you.
Not many people would choose hair loss over a few extra pounds but if you have noticed a change in your hair that you can’t seem to remedy, contact the Belgravia Centre on 020 7730 6666 or send an email. The UK’s leaders in hair loss prevention have been treating all forms of hair loss for years and also provide free advice and recommendation through their online diagnostic form.
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The Belgravia Centre is a world-renowned group of a hair loss clinic in Central London, UK. If you are worried about hair loss you can arrange a free consultation with a hair loss expert or complete our Online Consultation from anywhere in the world for home-use treatment.
View our Hair Loss Success Stories, which includes the world's largest gallery of hair growth photos and demonstrates the level of success that so many of Belgravia's patients achieve.