The ice diet claims to aid weight loss. But does it actually work?

The ice diet for weight loss can have a number of side effects. Try it at your own risk.

Have you heard of the ice diet plan ? It involves eating ice and a lot of it. The founder of the diet Brian Weiner believes that eating a lot of ice forces your body to burn more calories. According to him, eating about a litre of ice that is four cups of ice can help you burn as much as 160 calories in a day. If you do this every day, you can lose about half a kilo of weight in a month without making too many changes in your exercise or diet routine.

The ice diet works by increasing the basal metabolic rate. When you ingest significant amounts of ice, the body must burn energy to warm the ice to body temperature. The ingestion of ice would also provide some level of satiety. And while chomping down on ice can seem like an easy way to burn calories, we got nutritionist Padma Syal to tell us if this diet can be safe. Here's why fad diets are not a healthy weight loss option.

You need to give this diet a cold shoulder as you will tend to quickly gain back all the weight you lost as soon as you stop the diet. Also, chewing ice can crack the enamel and dentin of your teeth leaving your teeth prone to decay and cavities. The ice can also wreak havoc on the fillings in your teeth. Drinking ice water or ice hampers the process of digesting food as it causes your blood vessels to shrink. This can slow down the process of digestion and as the food is not digested properly, the nutrients are lost or not absorbed by the body.

The body s temperature is 37o C and when you consume something at a very low temperature, your body has to spend energy to regulate its temperature. This spent energy is otherwise used to digest food and absorb nutrients, thereby leaving your body short of nutrition. Also, read this before you try the whole 30 diet.

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