Do Fad Diets Help Us In Any Way?

Losing weight is sometimes a difficult thing to do, and that’s why most people turn to fad diets. They appear to be a fast and relatively easy thing to do when you have a couple of pounds you want off of you. Still, while these fad diets can seem like a savior from Heaven, on the long run they might be hard to keep and will actually do damage to your health.

What’s a fad diet?

We talked about fad diets, but what are they actually? They are short-timed diets where the aim is to lose weight as quickly as possible. With these diets, you only eat certain “wonder” foods or exclude things like carbohydrates from your diet so that you can lose weight.

Examples of Fad Diets

• The liquid diet: With this diet, you remove the hard substances (fibers) that your body may need. The drawback of this diet is that once you return to your normal eating habits, you will regain the weight back.
• Diets that are high in protein: With this diet, you are supposed to eat a lot of protein, for example, meat or eggs. It is said that by doing that, you build up muscle and lose weight. The drawback of this diet is that it puts an unnecessary strain on your kidneys and liver because of the excess protein.
• The broth or juice diet: This diet says you’re only supposed to drink juice or broth. The drawback of this diet is that you don’t receive all your nutrients, and you start feeling dizzy and fatigued.
• The cabbage diet: This diet is supposed to make you lose all your weight water. It does. The bad part is that once you go back to normal, you’re very likely to regain the pounds you just lost.
• A food-combining diet: People claim that if you combine certain foods, you can burn the fat faster.

What are the disadvantages of fad diets?

• Chances are, you will regain the weight back, which will render your diet useless.
• They deprive your body of the nutrients you need. This is a state similar to starvation, and it will make your metabolism slow down. Thus, you will frequently be tired and dizzy.
• You risk developing a chronic disease since you will remove important nutrients you’d normally get from grains, dairy or foods which are high in nutrients. These nutrients fight heart disease, diabetes or cancer.
• You stop seeing your exercising as an important part of your lifestyle. Since most fad diets require that you just eat certain foods (or not eat at all), the only way to keep your weight in check after the dieting is done is by eating and exercising regularly.

Tips for a good diet: Fat diets are in and out. You see a celebrity doing it, you do it too, it goes out of fashion and then another one that’s  just as bad comes in the spotlight. The best diets last for a lifetime. So, you have to find a healthy diet you can practice on a daily basis, as well as combine it with regular physical exercise. It asks for commitment and effort. Once you have that, you’re more than likely to lose that weight you want off.