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A 26-year-old woman discovered the hard way that crash dieting is a dangerous shortcut to health
Standing 160cm tall, Xiaoyu, an office worker in Hangzhou, China, initially weighed 65kg before deciding to change her lifestyle to fit into a bridesmaid dress.
According to South China Morning Post, Xiaoyu's self-designed "devil weight-loss plan" was a brutal mix of deprivation and high-intensity movement.
She almost entirely cut out staple foods, surviving on tiny portions of chicken breast and vegetables while running over 10km every day.
While she successfully shed 15kg in just two months, the rapid transformation triggered a series of health issues
She felt constantly exhausted, thirsty, and dizzy, eventually experiencing heart palpitations that sent her to the hospital.
At the Hangzhou Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Associate Chief Physician Cheng Boning found that Xiaoyu's blood glucose levels met the criteria for prediabetes.
The extreme regime had effectively broken her body's ability to regulate insulin
"She had almost completely eliminated carbohydrates from her diet while engaging in high-intensity exercise. This extreme strategy disrupted her insulin secretion, led to significant muscle and water loss, and severely damaged her metabolism," Cheng noted.
The doctor then prescribed a balanced recovery programme focusing on moderate aerobic exercise and actual nutrition.
After three months of sensible habits, her weight stabilised at 52.5kg, showing that sustainable health, too, requires a better long-term approach.
