When you need to lose weight, a diet program gives you guidelines to follow to help you meet your weight loss goal. A fad diet, or crash diet, is one type of diet that promises rapid weight loss results without having to put forth a lot of effort; however, there isn't any magic diet program that can help you to safely lose weight and keep it off.
Purpose
The main purpose of a fad diet is to encourage rapid weight loss; however, weight loss at a pace greater than 2 lb. per week is unhealthy. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, when you lose more than 2 lb. per week, you are probably losing water weight and muscle weight. Fad diets often encourage unhealthy eating habits. These diets usually forbid or severely restrict at least one major food group. Some fad diets allow you to eat only one specific food.
Effects
Following a fad diet can lead to medical conditions, such as osteoporosis, stroke, heart attack, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, kidney failure and liver damage. This is because fad diets usually don't contain all of the vitamins, minerals and nutrients your body needs to function properly. As a result of the lack of nutrients, your body starts to use muscle tissue to provide energy to vital organs. Once your muscle tissue is depleted, your body may start to use muscle tissue from your organs for energy.
Considerations
Because fad diets are so restrictive and unhealthy, you can only follow them for a short period of time. Once you begin to eat a normal diet again, you will likely regain the weight you lost. When you realize you have gained weight, you may opt to follow another fad diet. This cycle is called yo-yo dieting and is unhealthy because this type of dieting cycle negatively affects your metabolism.
Alternatives
Instead of following fad diets to lose weight, you should follow a diet based on eating a variety of healthy foods and exercising regularly. A diet that includes foods from all of the basic food groups, including meat and beans, vegetables, grains, fruits and milk, is a diet that you are likely going to follow long term. These types of diet encourage steady weight loss at a rate of 1 to 2 lb. per week, which means that you are losing unhealthy fat weight instead of healthy muscle weight. For a woman, a healthy diet includes at least 1,200 calories. Most women may need more calories. Some active women need as much as 2,200 calories daily. For men, a healthy diet is at least 1,500 calories per day, but most men need more. An active man may need as much as 2,800 calories daily, notes the University of Iowa Health Care.
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