The Snake Diet: Rapid Weight Loss Or Danger To Health?

What Is The Snake Diet?

A snake diet is a new nutrition trend that gains popularity among people who are trying to achieve their weight-loss goal. This eating pattern resembles intermittent fasting, however, it is a much more intense way to lose weight. Primarily, a snake juice diet consists of starvation that leads to rapid weight loss. This eating plan follows the snakes’ fasting lifestyle, which involves a lengthy fasting period followed with a 1-2 hour eating window. It was designed by Cole Robinson, a self-described fasting expert, who has no professional background in such areas as nutrition, medicine, or even biology. Many followers of this diet consider it to be an effective way to achieve the desired weight. However, that nutritionists do not recommend sticking to it, as this diet might harm your overall health. This article explains how the snake diet works, and what dangers and risks it entails.

How To Start The Snake Diet?

This eating approach has three main phases.

Phase 1

The first phase of a diet designed to make your body enter and maintain a metabolic state that is called ketosis. One can reach ketosis with the help of lengthy fasting or a low-carb diet, like a keto diet. During ketosis, human body burns fat instead of glucose (blood sugar) to get energy (18, 13).

In order to enter ketosis, you will need to start with an initial 48-hour fasting period (or even longer) that should be supplemented with a snake juice. Then, there is an eating window of 1-2 hours before the next fasting period. After this, a 72-hour fasting period starts, it’s purpose is to detoxify the liver. However, it’s not clear what toxins are meant by the author of the diet as liver and kidneys are considered to be natural detoxifiers that flush all harmful compounds through urine, sweat, and feces (12, 4). Moreover, the study shows that detox diets are not effective in purging any contaminants from the body (6).

Robinson also claims that people who start this diet for the first time need around 3.500 calories per week while the USDA recommends around 16.800 calories for women and 21.000 calories for men per week (2). A drastic calorie restriction can lead to a variety of health problems, including reduced fertility and weaker bones.

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Phase 2

The second phase involves cycling between periods of eating and fasting. The fasting period should last up to 48-96 hours broken with one big meal. You should stay on this phase until you reach your desired weight. According to Robinson’s eating theory, once you achieve your weight loss goal, the recommended weekly calorie intake should be around 8.500 for active women and 20.000 for active men. These calories should be distributed across 5 meals within 3 eating days.

Phase 3

This phase involves 24-48-hour fasting cycles broken with one big meal. Experts recommend to measure ketones in the body to track the process and maintain ketosis.

Snake Diet Juice Recipe

During the fasting period, you can’t consume any calories. The only thing that is allowed during the “No food” period is snake juice. A snake diet juice recipe was also designed by Cole Robinson to provide electrolytes your body requires. You will need 5 snake diet ingredients to prepare this juice:

8 cups (2 liters) of water
1/2 teaspoon (2 g) of Himalayan pink salt
1 teaspoon (5 g) of salt-free potassium chloride
1/2 teaspoon (2 g) of food-grade Epsom salts

Snake Diet Refeed

There are no specific rules on what you can or can’t eat during your eating window. Fasting, just like high-fat and low-carb diets, leads to a fat burning state of ketosis. Following a keto diet can make fasting easier as fatty food gives the feeling of satiety. Fasting can help you enter ketosis faster (10). Try to keep your meals simple and be consistent.

Can It Help You Lose Weight?

Starvation and drastic calorie restriction result in weight loss as the body is forced to use its energy stores. Usually, our body burns fat and lean muscles simultaneously to survive. However, a snake juice diet does not replenish the food your body needs, which leads to a rapid, unhealthy weight loss (8, 5). On a fast, you generally lose about 2 pounds (0.9 kg) per day for the first week, then 0.7 pounds (0.3 kg) per day by the third week (8).

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a safe weight loss range is about 1–2 pounds (0.5–0.9 kg) per week. Moreover, the study shows that following a healthy, well-balanced diet and regular physical activity are the most important determiners of health (7, 11). A snake diet doesn’t help you develop healthy eating habits and may lead to weight gain after getting back to a regular diet plan. Furthermore, this diet can’t provide all essential minerals, vitamins, nutrients which makes it extremely dangerous. The study shows that long-term fasting may lead to severe health problems (3).

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Benefits Of The Snake Diet

Robinson states that this eating approach can treat a number of diseases, including type 2 diabetes, herpes and inflammation. Nevertheless, these claims are unsubstantiated. The prolonged fasting and inflammation and diabetes need further study, as for now, the results are mixed (15, 16). A snake diet resembles intermittent fasting but it’s many stickers making it harder to get the body’s nutritional needs (1). It is still unclear whether this diet has any benefits except for the dangerous weight loss. Since the Snake Diet requires eating irregularly and the amount of food is very little, any limits on water intake will increase the risk of dehydration and are utterly dangerous (17). The human body needs around 30 different vitamins and minerals, which can be obtained by consuming food. Such a lengthy fasting can cause electrolyte imbalances and nutritional deficiencies (14, 9).

Cons Of The Snake Diet

It encourages unhealthy eating habits
It can lead to extreme nutrient deficiencies, dehydration, and eating disorder
It’s an exhaustive and very restrictive eating plan
It’s unsustainable as requires prolonged fasting
It fails to meet your nutritional needs
It can be harmful to your health

Common Side Effects Of Fasting

A fasting lifestyle can cause a number of unpleasant symptoms especially in the transition period when your body switches from sugar burning to fat-burning mode. Symptoms may vary from person to person as they depend on many factors like your metabolic flexibility, health status, and lifestyle. Here is the list of the most common side effects of fasting:

dizziness
headaches
low blood sugar
muscle aches
weakness
fatigue

How To Prevent Side Effects Of Fasting?

You are most likely to experience side effects of fasting if you are new to this eating approach. It’s better to limit your consumption of carbs and processed foods to reduce the possible side effects. However, if you already stick to a low carb diet, then you will probably won’t have any side effects. To get the best weight loss results, it’s important to stick to the fasting consistently and follow a healthy eating plan in order to reduce possible unpleasant symptoms that may appear.

Conclusion

There are a lot of followers and defenders of this eating approach. However, be aware that this diet has not been tested and is scientifically suspect. Meeting your goal weight requires more than just a diet. Achieve the dream body by making healthy lifestyle choices, changing your eating habits and getting more exercise.

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DISCLAIMER:

This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not address individual circumstances. It is not a substitute for professional advice or help and should not be relied on to make decisions of any kind. A licensed physician should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any medical conditions. Any action you take upon the information presented in this article is strictly at your own risk and responsibility!

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