Why Fad Diets Won’t Work in the Long Run.You want to lose weight and lose it fast so you consider one of the many popular fad diets you hear so much about. They all promise you will lose a lot of weight in just a short time, such as a week to two weeks. It sounds great but is a fad diet a good way to go?
Take a look at several of the fad diets. You should notice that no matter what foods are included and what foods are restricted, they are all unbalanced and missing vital nutrients your body needs for good health. The low carb diets include plenty of protein and fat but severely restrict carbs. Low fat to no fat diets eliminate all or nearly all fats and often limit protein as a result.
Another type of fad diet is one that focuses on one particular food that must be eaten at every meal, such as the grapefruit diet. Diets such as this usually severely restrict calories to 1000 or less. Any diet that restricts calorie intake that much cannot be maintained for long.
You will lose weight with most fad diets but you will go off the diet after a couple of weeks and likely gain it all back just as quickly. One of the reasons for this is that most if not all the weight lost is water weight. On top of regaining the lost weight, additional weight gain is common because of binging on the foods you couldn’t have while on the diet. Fad diets leave you feeling deprived and that often leads to overeating after a fad diet has ended.
Many people try one fad diet after another and become yo-yo dieters. Each time they go on a new diet, they find it is harder to stick with it and the weight is not as easily lost, especially with low calorie diets. The body goes into starvation mode to conserve fat stores. Muscle is burned for energy instead of fat. Eventually, you feel weak, maybe even sick. The only solution is to end the diet and increase calorie intake.
It is best to avoid all fad diets and simply eat a well-balanced diet that properly balances protein, fats and complex carbs. Lean meats, plenty of vegetables, some fruits, grains and dairy should be included and limit simple carbs such as foods contain lots of sugar. Exercise enough to burn more calories than you eat and the weight will come off at a healthy, sustainable rate.