For anyone who is not sure, a fad diet is one that promises quick weight loss and is usually popular for a short amount of time. So, that brings on the question, ‘Should you use a fad diet for the purpose of losing weight’?
Fad diets are tempting to choose because they claim to offer a quick weight loss solution. We live in an ‘instant’ world where we want everything as fast as possible. However, we tend to forget that the weight gain was not instant. Would you be able to resist an offer that claims to melt away all your fat within just a few weeks? I know you cannot! People often fall for such offers only to realize that they have been scammed.
What will usually happen with fad diets is that you will lose a few pounds very quickly but, and this is a big BUT, you will gain back all those ‘lost pounds’ shortly! That’s one of the things that they don’t tell you. There are other side affects that you could suffer from by choosing fad diets! Prolonged use of fad diets may even cause untimely death!
Here are three reasons why fad diets fail:
1.Fad diets don’t necessarily change your bad eating habits:
Weight loss is only possible when you follow a healthy diet and also change your overall lifestyle habits. Instead of sitting in front of the TV for hours, you need to get up and move around. Instead of eating chocolate as if it’s going out of fashion you need to eat healthy, nutritional foods with as much variety as possible.
Bad eating habits are what made you put on extra weight in the first place so fad diets aren’t going to change those bad habits. That’s why any results you see are only going to be short-lived!
2. Fad diets are unnatural diets:
Most fad diets suggest that you follow unnatural meal plans. They tend to ask you to survive only one fruit juice and cabbages, or to drastically reduce your food intake, or starve for long periods of time – also known as crash dieting.
Some of them require you to survive on only one type of food such as protein-rich foods. By doing this you create an imbalance in your body’s nutrient equilibrium, with one nutrient being in excess and the other in deficit! As your body cannot sustain with a type of diet such as this for too long. This is the reason why you have to quit fad diets at some point of time or other, the sooner the better!
3. Fad diets can result in severe health complications:
Fad diets affect your health severely especially if you use them for a prolonged period of time. Depression, headaches, digestion problems such as constipation, impotence, dehydration, etc., are some of the maladies that may result from the use of fad diets. In extreme cases of prolonged use of fad diets, premature death may occur. However, many people quit their diet programs much before death could happen!
So, in answer to the question ‘Should you use a fad diet for the purpose of losing weight’? I’ll let you be the judge of that!
You CAN lose weight without the use of fad diets.
Sue Baker
http://www.articlesbase.com/nutrition-articles/weight-loss-are-fad-diets-any-good-top-3-reasons-why-you-should-be-wary-of-fad-diets-713608.html
