Do you have to pay a fortune at a fitness center to lose weight in a few days? Cyril Hanouna and his partner, columnist Shana Loustau, no longer seem to want to try the experience again. Their recent stay in Switzerland in a specialized center, intended to promote rapid weight loss, above all left them… hungry. An anecdote told by the host on Wednesday October 7 on the air.
Hungry, they lose a kilo a day
The media couple recently tried the experience of a very supervised stay dedicated to weight loss. On the program: light broths, body treatments and above all an extremely reduced diet, with only 850 calories per day.
The results on the scale are quick. “I lost a kilo a day”said Cyril Hanouna, who ultimately claims to have lost six kilos during his stay.
But behind this express weight loss, the experience was far from comfortable. Fatigue, permanent hunger and difficulty tolerating the restriction: the couple finally decided to leave the center two days before the scheduled end.
And for Pauline Pied, dietitian nutritionist, the problem appears from the start: 850 calories per day represents an extremely low intake for an adult.
“Eating 850 calories a day is eating like a child, or even less than a child”underlines the specialist. For comparison, she points out that a two-year-old child may already have energy needs higher than this level. “From the point of view of energy requirements, this is therefore not a goal suitable for adults.”
“We spent ten days in one meal”
The most surprising thing, however, remains what happens after the stay.
Barely leaving the center, Cyril Hanouna and Shana Loustau rush to a hearty meal. “We went out on the tenth day, we went to a restaurant, we got down. Pasta, etc.”says the host.
Then comes the chocolate. Lots of chocolate. “We took a whole bag of chocolate and I smashed it”he continues, before summarizing the experience with a formula: “In one hour, we shot ten days.”
A reaction which may seem paradoxical after a treatment intended precisely to control eating. However, for Pauline Pied, it is far from surprising.
After extreme restriction, the body demands its energy
“What he describes is frustration and eating compulsions”analyzes the dietitian nutritionist.
The first mechanism is physiological. For ten days, the body receives much less energy than it normally expends. When food becomes available in quantity again, the body seeks to compensate for this deprivation.
“They were so restricted, so hungry that at some point it becomes difficult to reason when you go out and have food.”explains Pauline Pied.
In other words, what looks like a simple “lack of willpower” may be greatly facilitated by the restriction itself. After several days of very low intakes, hunger can become especially difficult to ignore.
“The body seeks to fill the lack of energy it had for ten days, to increase its energy quota and to recover what it was missing”, she continues.
The brain also ends up rebelling
But the phenomenon would not be only physiological. There is also a psychological dimension linked to restriction.
When a person severely forbids certain foods or drastically reduces the quantities for several days, food can take up a disproportionate place in their thoughts. And when the prohibition disappears, control can suddenly give way.
This is what the nutritionist calls “cognitive restriction”.
“Psychologically, it’s not possible to hold on like this,” she believes. After ten days of eating very little, returning to an abundant diet can therefore encourage much greater consumption than usual.
Pasta, chocolate, bread, brioche… As part of food compulsions, some people can actually eat several foods in a chain and consume very large quantities in a short time.
“They can eat enormous quantities, but because these calories have been lacking for several days”specifies Pauline Pied.
The problem with diets that promise rapid weight loss
The story told by Cyril Hanouna thus illustrates a well-known paradox of very restrictive diets: the greater the restriction, the more difficult it can become to maintain control over time.
A very rapid weight loss on the scale does not necessarily mean that the body has just lost fat mass. Part of the variation observed in the short term may in particular be linked to glycogen stores and the water associated with them, as well as to digestive contents.
Above all, a method which relies on such a significant restriction is hardly compatible with a sustainable diet.
“This is not a normal way to eat.”summarizes Pauline Pied.
The risk is then to get locked into a restriction-frustration-compulsion cycle: we deprive ourselves severely to lose weight quickly, we end up breaking down in the face of hunger and frustration, then we start restricting ourselves again to compensate.
“This is not a diet to recommend“
For the dietitian, the problem with this type of stay is therefore less the fact of wanting to lose weight than the method used to achieve it.
“It’s not something to recommend”she believes. And above all, weight loss achieved at the cost of extreme restriction offers no guarantee of stability once you return to daily life.
In the case of Cyril Hanouna and Shana Loustau, the kilos lost during the stay could therefore be quickly followed by a weight regain, particularly if the same cycle of restriction and compensation continues. Because the real issue, after losing weight, remains less about staying at 850 calories for a few days than being able to continue to eat sufficiently, regularly and in a way compatible with a normal life.
And in this area, the express diet still seems to have a lot to prove.