The problem with "Fad" diets

By Paul Duxbury / Published on December 9th, 2007 / Politics

Fad diets are well known about their promise of bringing some instant weight loss. First of all you should pay your doctor a visit before starting any diet, especially a fad one, because these diets are not among the ideal ones concerning balance between loosing weight and preventing health issues. Some helpful advices will now follow for doing these diets It’s not recommended to do such a diet for more then 3 to 7 days, because they are unbalanced and are not meant to be a permanent way of eating. Concerning the Atkins diet, they say that you can keep eating as they instruct you for extended periods of time, which is not a good idea. But if you feel like, do so, keeping in mind that Atkins Fad Diet changes after the first two weeks, so look it up closely first. While keeping the fad diet, do not overexert yourself, even if you feel fine during that time; the fad diet can become too stressful for your body and overexerting can result in some major health issues. Another helpful piece of advice is one that concerns your mood and comfort and not your body or health. Try avoiding having dinner or any other meal with your friends when they are not keeping a diet also; you’ll find yourself in a bit weird situation if they eat their heads off and you must eat something very tiny. It is recommended to avoid these situations and eat at home, preferably alone. Usually it can happen to get very hungry during that time and considering that you are devoted keeping your diet, try drinking a cold glass of water; it will be helpful keeping away the hunger pangs. After finishing the crash diet, don’t start celebrating the end of dieting with food, otherwise all that effort will be in vain. Continue to eat keeping a balanced diet once you are done with the fad one.

Some general issue

Nutrition experts advice to permanently adopt healthy eating, rather than keeping crash diets in order to loose unwanted pounds in few days. One example is the Cabbage Soup Diet which can undermine your health adding abdominal discomfort and flatulence. Eating a balanced diet that consists of a wide variety of foods can make all the difference and it is the first principle of good and healthy nutrition. After a few weeks of fad diets that usually consists of only one main food or type of food, you may find yourself developing nutritional deficiencies because no type of food has all the ingredients the body needs. The main issue is that there are no “super-foods” and that’s why you should eat as many food types as you can and want but in moderate amounts, not large ones of a few special foods. Another problem with fad dieting is that they violate a very important principle of nutrition; eating must be enjoyable. They tend to be so boring that almost no one can stay on them for too long without enormous amount of sacrifices.

Rather than keeping a diet, anyone should consider that a daily 30 minutes walk makes more than almost any diet or fad diet. This helps you maintain your weight loss over the time, and combined with a good and healthy nutrition it will speed it up. Many fad diets are based on folklore, some dating back to the early 19th century. You may find high in protein diets which are also high in fat, because they have not been documented as being safe in the long term. In conclusion, the only way to lose weight and still have a healthy nutrition is to eat less and maintain a daily physical activity. This way with fresh fruits and vegetables, fat-free or low-fat dairy, boiled meat not fried and some physical exercises you will find out that losing weight is pretty easy and best of all is healthy. Also anyone can try these diets, but remember that after some time keeping this nutrition you will need to see a doctor in order to check that you do not have any problems. The doctor will then guide you to continue your diet if it is healthy enough or to stop because it will heart not only your body but your entire system. Diets are usually made for short time use, not for becoming a way of eating, and that’s why you should think twice before continuing, or starting over a diet or a fad diet.

About the author:

Paul is Head of Training for a major UK Charitable Organisation with a wealth of experience in personal development, management development, e-learning and operational management. In addition he owns two of the UK's leading Ebook Provider websites and Paul also owns and

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