People spend millions of dollars each year to companies promising fast and easy weight loss. It can be hard to resist because when it comes to weight loss, you may want to lose it as quickly as possible. While you might lose weight following one of these fad diets, you will more than likely gain it back. Fad diets are not the answer to permanent weight loss.
Lose Weight Too Quickly
Many fad diets promise large amounts of weight loss over a short period of time. If you lose more than 2 lbs. a week you are likely losing muscle and water weight, which will leave you feeling weak, and increase the likelihood you will regain the lost weight. Decreasing your daily calorie intake by 500 calories a day should produce a 1/2 to 1 lb. weekly fat loss. Or, you can decrease your daily calorie intake by 250 calories, and increase your daily expenditure through regular exercise by 250 calories to create the same deficit to help you lose the weight.
Require Special Foods
In order to lose weight, many fad diets require you to eat special food items such as shakes or bars. Replacing meals with these special foods will also produce a calorie deficit and help you lose weight. However, many of these fad diet plans do not teach you how to eat after you lose the weight, and when you go back to your old eating habits, you will likely regain all the weight you just lost.
Cut Out Important Food Groups
Many fad diet plans recommend you omit whole food groups to help promote weight loss. For example, low-carbohydrate diets such as the Atkins diet or the South Beach Diet, recommend you eliminate most fruits and grains from your diet on their weight-loss plan. Fruits and grains provide your body with essential nutrients necessary for good health, such as fiber, vitamin C, vitamin A, folate and potassium. Eliminating whole food groups from your diet can be very unhealthy and cause you to miss out on these nutrients.
Do Not Provide Lifelong Health Habits
The word fad implies temporary, and you may approach a fad diet as a temporary means to reach your goal. But when you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to create healthy habits you can follow for the rest of your life. A good weight-loss plan should include foods you enjoy eating and teach you how to balance your intake to maintain a healthy weight. A good weight-loss plan should also include regular physical activity.
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