It is safe to say that virtually every bride wants to look good on her wedding day. It is also safe to say that many are horrified after that first bridal gown fitting- when they find out that most wedding dresses run at least one size smaller. According to a Cornell University study, researchers found that nearly three quarters of the women they surveyed wanted to lose weight before their wedding, with most wanting to lose an average of twenty pounds but some wanting to lose even more.

Women have turned to a number of crash or fad diets in the past to lose their excess weight with some being marketed directly to brides and their bridal party. The problem with some of these diets are the fact that they are too low in calories to be safe and may lead to serious problems like hair loss, brittle nails and sallow, dry skin, all things that are not typically desirable on a wedding day.

Some women are interested in using juice fasts- which may be even worse for their efforts than they may imagine. Juice diets, in addition to being very expensive,with some costing more than sixty dollars per day, they are difficult to stick to in the long term and may cause damage to the metabolism. Most frightening of all, liquid diets like these increase the risk of dehydration because they are laxative in nature.

Another dangerous option still being used by women is the use of human chorionic gondtropin (HCG) injections which are not only illegal but are deemed as ineffective by the Food and Drug Administration. Women are still paying big money to get the injections, even after being told point blank that the injections do not work. Now women are paying as much as $1500 for ten days of a nasal gastric tube to lose weight for their weddings. Done under doctor's supervision, the diet has only 800 calories per day, delivered via a small tube snaked down through the nose and into the stomach.

Health experts are warning that extremely low calorie diets like these are fool hardy at best but potentially dangerous leading to problems such as kidney stones, dehydration and headaches and may also play a role in future problems including osteoporosis and other problems. There are smarter ways to lose weight, even for a wedding that do not require tubes or constantly living in the bathroom. A bridal boot camp may be a good solution for some women while others may need to relax their wedding visions and actually say yes to the slightly larger dress.