Fad diets are those that promise amazing weight loss without much effort on your part. Often they cause you to limit your food choices or eat only one type of food in hopes of dropping weight fast. While fad diets can help you to lose weight quickly, they can also impair your metabolism and gain your weight back even more quickly once you go off the diet. A closer look at fad diets reveals that they're neither a sensible, nor safe way to lose weight.
Function
The purpose of a fad diet is to help you lose weight fast, with as little effort as possible. Unfortunately, another function of fad diets is to make money. Diet authors can make millions by promoting a diet that has little scientific backing. Fad diets appeal to those who are frustrated by their current weight and body, yet not willing to make a long-term time and effort commitment in order to regain a healthier self image.
Features
Fad diets have similar characteristics, even when the foods and methods are different. You can usually spot a fad diet when the focus is on finding ways to drastically cut calories for a short-term period of time, notes KidsHealth.org, a division of the Nemours Foundation. Fad diets often instruct you to only eat one type of food, or relies on various pills to help stop your appetite. A fad diet may also cause you to replace whole meals with supplements and drinks to help you lose weight through caloric intake restriction.
Advantages
Fad diets can be fast and effective at times. The only way to lose weight is through burning more calories than you consume. This is more easily done when you consume less calories throughout the day. That's likely why you often hear glowing testimonials from followers of a certain fad diet -- the diet does work, while the individual is following the rules.
Disadvantages
Fad diets are far from healthy, warns the Diet Bites website. Restricting your calories too much can result in malnutrition. It can also cause your body to begin storing fat for times when you're hungry, resulting in a slower metabolism. While you may lose weight while on a fad diet, as soon as you begin eating normally again, you're likely to gain more weight back. What's more, fad diets can be boring and difficult to stick to; it's nearly impossible to nosh on cabbage while your friends are indulging during a night out.
Alternatives
Instead of relying on fast fad diets in order to lose weight, consider a more sensible approach. When you eat a variety of foods like lean protein, whole grains, fruits and vegetables, you give your body the right nutrition while eating less calories. Eating smaller portions of high-fiber and high-protein foods can help you best your appetite. Fad diets rarely say much about exercise , but adding 30 to 60 minutes of exercise to your daily routine can help you round out your lifestyle for effective, long-lasting weight loss, notes FamilyDoctor.org.
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