Why Are Fad Diets Bad For You?

Why Are Fad Diets Bad For You?

Fad diets or to use a more accurate term, crash diets are pretty popular because they promise rapid weight loss in a very short space of time. Most people are desperate to lose weight fast and will try anything that even remotely suggests this solution, but how true are these claims? Let's find out.

1. Sure, you will lose weight, but in almost all cases the weight loss is temporary and is mostly water. Once you start to rehydrate - and you have to otherwise you could face serious consequences, even death - the weight will return.

2. Fad diets are often very rigid and boring. Its the all or nothing dieting approach, where you must have certain foods and nothing else, or you must do this at that time with no margin for error. How long do you think you'll keep going? Eventually you will start craving food all the time and probably just quit.

3. They don't allow for enough fruits and vegetables in your weight loss diet or give you enough of a variety of foods that you need to consume.

4. Most fad diets that promise rapid weight loss usually concentrates on one type of food at the expense of another. This does not provide a well balanced diet. To counter this they stipulate taking vitamins, but some vitamins are only absorbed by the body in conjunction with certain foods. As a result certain nutritional problems may arise.

5. Most fat content in fad diets are above the levels advised by the American Heart Association (AHA) and other health associations. Low carbs and high fat diets, over time, can cause cardiac or heart problems.

6. They are short term solutions that do not ingrain longterm lifestyle changes required for you to lose weight and keep it off. It is more of a quick loss, quick gain system that does nothing for effective and permanent weight loss, and does even less for your health and emotional state.

Whatever the marketing material and outrageous claims might say, fad diets are not long term solutions. They are nothing more than over hyped diet programs that tends to be the trend of the moment for a while and make someone lots of money. The most effective way to lose weight is a well balanced, healthy diet, exercise and to avoid fad diets.