That dream date is three days away and you still have to lose a few extra pounds before you can look perfect in that little black dress. What do you do? Eat cabbage soup? Drink nothing but lemon juice? Seriously, there are a lot of diets introduced out there that purport to make you lose weight fast. But we all know there's no fast and easy cure for shedding those excess bulges. It takes exercise and a proper diet to actually lose the pounds and keep it off for life. Unfortunately, some individuals refuse to follow good sense and get carried away with fad diets in the hope that they actually lose weight in as little as three days. And they do. After all, if you've had nothing but crackers or cabbage soup the whole time, wouldn't you lose weight? But the more important question should you decided to follow these fad diets remains: Is it healthy?

Fast weight loss diets carries with it a lot of health risks that no sane person would want to subject himself or herself to. For starters, rapid weight loss puts you at a greater risk for gallstones. They are small substances that look like pebbles that form in your gallbladder. When you lose weight rapidly, the liver secretes extra cholesterol into the bile to metabolize the fat during your fast weight loss diet, which results to the development of gallstones. While it is possible for you to live without your gallbladder in the event that a surgery is required, the pain, hassle and psychological torture just isn't worth it.

Another health risk of these rapid weight loss diets is that it increases your chances of developing an eating disorder. Your desire to lose weight may lead to self-starvation or anorexia or the deprivation may lead you to a cycle of binging and purging known as bulimia.

Low-carbohydrate high-protein diets can lead to ketosis or an abnormal metabolic state because of the too-much saturated fat, low-fiber and low-carbohydrate content of these diets. Ketosis causes such unpleasant side effects as nausea and bad breath that you wouldn't want to bring with you on your dream date. Worse, it puts such a strain on the kidneys and contributes to the appearance of kidney stones due to the high level of calcium excreted through the urine.

When you lose weight fast, your skin also sags. This is especially more obvious when you go on a diet without accompanying it with some form of exercise. The psychological torture, however, is perhaps one of the worst side effects of a rapid weight loss diet. A fad or crash diet cannot be sustained for the long-term. The moment an individual goes back to his previous eating regimen, he or she starts to regain weight fast. What adds to the mentally anguish is the fact that they've gained more weight than what they originally started with since the diet has already wrecked havoc on their metabolism

If you really want to lose weight and keep it off for good, do it through a healthy and sensible eating plan and daily exercise. There's just no other way around it. Fast weight loss diets are a sure way to a host of unwanted medical problems.