Fad Diets - Why Are They Bad?

It is not surprising that many people wonder why fad diets are bad when they seem to get such good results. You'll find many sites on the Internet claiming significant weight loss in just a few days. That type of weight loss is always temporary. It's usually 90% water which will be put right back on as soon as your body rehydrates, which it must do if you're not going to suffer severe health problems or die.

Other fad diets are not as obviously crash diets with outrageous claims but they are over-hyped diet plans that tend to be fashionable for a while and usually make a lot of money for the inventor in their associated product sales. In the best cases these are good nutrition plans which will help you lose weight, but which you could probably have received for free from your weight loss doctor. In the worst cases they will prove so difficult to follow that you'll give up after a week.

The bad of fad diets

1. Diets that promise quick and easy weight loss are usually based on eating more of one food type and none of another. These do not give the benefits that you would get from a balanced diet. They may suggest you take supplements however many supplements are not absorbed by the body unless they are taken along with the foods that the diet has banned. After a few weeks, if you stick to it that long, that is, you may begin to develop a few nutritional deficiencies.

2. Fad diets are often boring and over-restrictive. After the novelty of the first day or two, you may find that you do not enjoy your meals. You will then start to crave food constantly and will break the diet. You may even feel guilty, thinking it's your fault that you did not lose weight.

3. Most fad diets do not follow recommendations of the American Heart Association and similar associations for fat levels in the diet. Often the diet will recommend high fat foods and low carbs which if taken for the long term and sometimes short term, could result in heart disease. The promoters may tell you that the diet is only intended to be followed for a short time. But you probably will not reach your weight goal in that time, and then what? You either continue with a plan that is not good for your health, or stop and may gain back what you lost.

4. Many fad diets do not help you to incorporate enough servings of raw foods or living foods like fruits and vegetables in your weight loss program, or give you the variety of foods that your body needs.

5. Quick, weight-loss diets are just a temporary solution and don't help you to make permanent changes to your eating habits. Permanent changes are the only way to remain at your target weight once you reach it. Fad diets encourage yo-yo diet-binge cycles of fast weight loss and then equally fast weight gain. This is worse for your health and your self esteem than if you had stayed overweight all the time.

Whatever the promotional materials may say, these diets will not help you in the long term. Iit's really no weight loss secret but the best way to sustain weight loss is to eat a varied and healthy diet and if possible a diet predominately living foods and do not overeat, exercise regularly and avoid fad diets.