The "congee diet" is essentially a low-energy diet. If you are not overweight or obese to begin with, blindly adopting this diet will not only reduce your weight but also bring many health problems. Weight is a signal of health; while being overweight or obese is a major health hazard, being underweight is also detrimental. Maintaining a healthy weight is the most important thing.
A Real-Life Example
My name is Xiaomei, 19 years old, and a sophomore in college. I've been overweight since I was a child and never paid much attention to it, thinking, "So what if I'm a bit chubby?" After entering university, I became more concerned about my appearance. Seeing the other girls in my dorm wearing beautiful clothes that I couldn't fit into, and touching my chubby cheeks and thick waist, I decided to lose weight. To "enjoy slimness" quickly, I created a strict diet plan for myself based on my love for congee, which consisted of basically having congee for all three meals—such as congee with pickles, congee with century egg, or plain congee. To avoid feeling hungry, I also stocked up on large quantities of vegetables and fruits like cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, and apples. In six months, my weight dropped from 73 kg to 48 kg, and classmates often came to me for my "weight loss secrets." Little did they know, while I was secretly delighted with my weight loss results, I was also experiencing considerable distress: my period stopped for several months, my hair was falling out in clumps, and I often felt dizzy... I couldn't understand it. During my weight loss process, I never starved myself; I had staple foods with every meal. Why was I still having these problems? (From a female university student's blog)
Weight loss is a never-ending topic, and society is full of various weight loss methods, such as the "congee diet" or the "vegetable and fruit diet" adopted by the girl mentioned above. These are essentially low-energy diets. In medicine, a low-energy diet is a therapeutic diet used to treat conditions like obesity and must be conducted under the guidance of a professional. If you are not overweight or obese to begin with, blindly adopting this diet will not only reduce your weight but also bring many health problems, such as anemia and amenorrhea. Some people blame these symptoms on congee and eating vegetables and fruits, mistakenly believing that congee and eating more vegetables and fruits are unhealthy. In fact, the real culprit behind this series of symptoms is the nutritional deficiency diseases caused by long-term adherence to such monotonous, low-energy diets.
Relying solely on congee can lead to insufficient energy
Congee, both in ancient and modern times, has been considered a healthy food that can replenish fluids, strengthen the spleen and stomach, and nourish the body. Congee can also be cooked with ingredients rich in protein, such as lean meat, fish, or with ingredients like lotus seeds, lily beans, red dates, and Chinese yam, making it highly valuable for medicinal diets and suitable for people with impaired digestive function or indigestion. However, from a nutritional perspective, the main component of congee is grains, such as rice, millet, or oats. The main nutrients provided by grains are carbohydrates, B vitamins, and dietary fiber. Protein accounts for only about 8% to 10%, and the fat content is only about 1%. Although grains contain a fair amount of protein, its content is lower and its biological value is not high compared to animal foods like eggs, milk, and meat. Moreover, the energy provided by congee is relatively low; for example, 100 grams of rice congee contains less than 200 kilojoules of energy.
Long-term low-energy diets can harm health
Vegetables and fruits mainly provide water, vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber, with very little protein and fat, so their energy content is also low. Long-term adherence to a diet of congee, vegetables, and fruits for three meals a day may provide a feeling of fullness, but it far from meets the body's energy and protein needs. The body continuously consumes its existing reserves of energy and protein, creating a deficit, which can lead to protein-energy malnutrition, manifesting as symptoms like emaciation, dizziness, fatigue, susceptibility to colds, and amenorrhea. To some extent, amenorrhea is a warning signal from the body, hoping its owner will "pull back from the brink" soon, otherwise the consequences could be dire. In real life, there are many such cases: people lose weight to the point of physical exhaustion, suffer from organ failure due to severe malnutrition, and even pay the price with their lives!
Those who truly need to lose weight should seek guidance from a professional doctor
Weight is a reflection of health. While being overweight or obese is a major health hazard, being underweight is also unhealthy, as malnutrition can lead to a weakened immune system and an increased risk of infections and illness. Therefore, maintaining a healthy weight is very important. If you are indeed overweight or obese, do not resort to dieting easily; you should lose weight under the guidance of a professional doctor. No single food can meet the body's needs for all nutrients. As early as in the "Huangdi Neijing" (The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon), the principle of "five grains as nourishment, five fruits as supplements, five livestock as benefits, and five vegetables as sustenance" was proposed, which is the principle of a balanced diet advocated by modern nutrition. This means that food should be diverse, including grains, vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, eggs, milk, beans, etc., to meet the needs for various nutrients. Even those who are losing weight should maintain a balanced diet. The total energy intake from food should be based on an individual's energy expenditure; only when these two are balanced can a healthy weight be maintained.