Many Americans are impatient. They want things as quickly as possible and are willing to push the limits to see that this happens. Weight loss is no exception. Many Americans turn to fad diets that promise quick weight loss, often picking the diet that promises the most weight loss in the shortest period of time. While losing weight can make you healthier, doing it too quickly with a fad diet can be unhealthy and unproductive in the long term.
General Information
A fad diet can be defined as any weight-loss program that promises a large amount of weight loss in a short amount of time. Most of these diets are advertised and sold commercially. Although it is hard to generalize all fad diets together, one element that most fad diets have in common is not following the protocol of a balanced diet. Many fad diets restrict foods and often entire food groups such as dietary fat and carbohydrates. Most fad diets make scientific claims that cannot be supported.
Unbalanced Nutrition
Many fad diets promote unbalanced nutrition and poor, unhealthy eating habits. One of the primary health concerns about fad diets is that they restrict solid foods, either moderately or severely, that provide your body with calories and essential nutrients such as fat, carbohydrates, protein, vitamins and minerals. This can cause malnutrition and result in symptoms such as extreme fatigue, dizziness, hormonal imbalances and depression. For example, many low-carbohydrate and high-protein dieting protocols can leave you feeling extremely tired because your body's preferred source of energy is carbohydrates. The "no pain, no gain" mantra does not apply to weight loss. Symptoms of malnutrition are your body's way of telling you that you are compromising your health.
Effectiveness
Most fad diets are not successful at promoting long-term and lasting weight loss. Following fad diets that make extreme restrictions to calories can result in short-term weight loss, but most of that weight will be muscle and water. Furthermore, it will begin to get more difficult to lose weight because your metabolism will slow down. According to Penn State University, following a very low-calorie diet that is under 1200 calories will put your body into starvation mode, and your metabolic rate will decrease as your body tries to conserve energy. If you resume your regular eating habits, you are likely to regain any and all the weight that you lost.
Healthy Weight Loss
Losing weight does not have to be painstakingly hard and is more effective in the long term if it is done gradually rather than drastically. The University of Illinois explains some general guidelines to follow if you want to lose weight and keep it off in a healthy manner. You should reduce the number of daily calories you eat by 500 to 1000 calories. For most people, this will cause 1 to 2 lbs. of fat loss a week. Losing 1 to 2 lbs. a week is ideal. While this seems like an unbearably slow rate, it can potentially result in 104 lbs. of weight lost over the course of a year. Best of all, the weight loss can be permanent if you continue to eat in a healthy manner and not exceed your caloric requirements.
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