What is a fad diet doing towards Nutrition and Weight Loss?

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“Fad diets are fat businesses that fade over time”

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Unfortunately, the question of what is a fad diet doesn’t come to everyone’s mind, before hitting into one. The world wide web is full of unsustainable fad diets with quick weight loss schemes as the main cause which appeals to the gullible public who gets caught up in the shell game.

It’s unimaginable how so many people are swallowing information on diet trends rather than getting to know the importance of healthy eating.

We all are looking for an easy guide to good health. The truth is, good things can’t be rushed. Healthy eating is a practice of nourishment. Can nourishment be rushed? No, nourishment happens gradually. That means we need to do anything and everything that aids in the nourishment of our bodies.

Keeping up with your healthy eating habits can be challenging. You might feel excited in the beginning to follow a wholesome routine, but when the weighing scale display more or less the same body weight as before, frustration and impatience crawls in. 

Trust me, I’ve been there before. That’s when you look for a quick fix — diet pills, bracing up with liquid food, or some other unsustainable diet. 

Dieting has been an evergreen strategy to lose weight, for ages. But, is a fad diet the best way to drop those extra pounds?

The reason why you should uncover the truth at the earliest is to “not repent for the loss created by these diet trends”, which at times cannot be undone or recovered in the future. There is supporting evidence to prove the downsides of these trends. According to the Boston Medical Survey of 45 million Americans, up to 50% of them went on a fad diet. Imagine the huge revenue being generated by an industry like this, who’s secreting the juices out of consumers’ innocence.

It is wise to know that there are healthier ways to manage weight. The key elements to losing weight are — wholesome food (for a balanced diet), physical activity (such as exercise), and making a long-term plan.

This will benefit you from feeling good about yourself in the long run. Meeting your body’s needs will not only keep you happy and calm but also fulfilled.  Any fad diet has a high chance of throwing you into anxiety for the sake of quenching the thirst of losing that extra weight. 

Instead, focusing on “Mind-Body-and-Soul as a whole” will put you at ease. Remember, weight loss is a byproduct of healthy eating, and not vice-versa.

I’m sure you do not want to achieve just “a trimmed figure”, without overall good health for your well-being.

What is a fad diet?

Fad diets like fashion cycles vary and circulate in speed, as those eating practices that “take us by surprise, but fade quickly”. This is an apt description of many of the fad diets on the market.

Although these diets can be cool to share, they are not worth investing a large amount of money or time. 

Fad diets are those which promote only one type of food, slashing many other nutrients from your plate. They are usually marketed by people with an absolute interest in such food, proclaiming a lot about its life-changing benefits, especially its magical weight reduction properties.

How to spot a fad diet

If fad diets are not what you want to keep on your checklist, then don’t worry, this article will guide you on how to spot a fad diet. Firstly, knowing what a fad diet is, will help you recognize these diets easily. 

Typically, they possess some, or all, of the below characteristics:

• The primary focus is on weight loss than on vitality and longevity.
• Promotes a quick fix to achieve weight loss goals.
• They emphasize a specific food group, cutting off several other nutrients from your plate.
• Follows a very strict protocol towards weight loss, regardless of its side effects.
• Formulates diet based on a single study or limited knowledge.
• It puts you always on a “hunger game”.
• They do not have a long-term scope.
• Guarantees shedding certain pounds within certain days.
• Do not talk about the basics of food, nutrition, and healthy habits.

Fad diet examples

Some of the common fad diet examples include:

• The ketogenic diet — This high-fat and low carbohydrate diet typically means, eating too few calories than your body actually needs. It has gained so much hype globally that it’s nearly impossible to spot one keto follower around you.

To put it briefly, it’s a “meat lovers diet”, since that’s what they emphasize — shop buckets of meat-meat-meat!  Well, definitely “not a cruelty-free choice”.

• South Beach diet — Falling under the umbrella of the Keto diet, this too focuses on low-carb foods, with a high amount of protein and healthy fats than in a typical healthy eating plan.

• Paleo diet — Paleo or The Paleolithic diet is a cavemen’s diet, which humans ate million years ago before farming evolved. It includes meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds; while avoiding grains, legumes, sugar, salt, etc from the diet.

• Liquid diet — To put it quite hilariously, a liquid diet throws people into a pool of water. Well, that means, a person eats no solid food, just consuming liquids in the form of soup, shakes, juices, and smoothies. How can such a diet not make you feel hungry? Of course, it will. Eventually, it will lead to overeating or binge snaking after you have lost some pounds through starvation.

Liquid Diets: “You cannot attain Salvation through Starvation”

• Intermittent fasting — Is one of the most horrible eating practices to come across in human history – literally making someone starve, just to lose a few inches of your body. This eating pattern cycles between periods of eating and fasting.

• Vegan diet — A vegan diet is cruelty-free, something that many millennials support today, looking at the enormous amount of animal torture happening for the sake of food itself. It’s a diet that focuses on plant-based nutrition such as vegetables, grains, nuts, and fruits; and processed foods made from plants alone. Vegans do not eat food that comes from animals, including dairy products, milk, and honey. A vegan diet is wholesome and ethical, but at the same time, it’s difficult to find vegan substitutes in every place.

• Gluten-free diet — A gluten-free diet excludes gluten-rich foods – a healthy protein found in whole grains such as wheat, barley, oats, etc, or the same foods from which gluten protein has been removed substantially.

• Raw foodism — Raw foodism, also known as the Raw diet involves eating mostly foods that are uncooked or unprocessed. Although it sticks to the great idea of not destroying the food’s nutrition by cooking, it still provides too few proteins and calories to the body. Eating raw can create indigestion and bowel issues in the body caused due to microbial infection.

Are fad diets healthy?

Diet trends are crazily popping in our society, with almost all of them having harm associated with it. Unfortunately, most people with a lack of knowledge or those desperately looking for weight loss solutions become prone to the health consequences associated with these diets and dietary products sold at a high price in the market. 

Understanding, the fact that there’s no healthy way to lose weight faster, can save you from getting into this rat trap.

These diet trends out of fancy, captivate your interest while posing dire health consequences both short-term and long-term. Relying on trends that cause you to starve or rob your body of essential nutrients, does not account for healthy eating.

Earlier these trends were insanely adopted by women, who fell into the trap, under the pressure of society’s unrealistic beauty standards — not to ignore the post-maternity women who desperately want to reduce a large chunk of their body weight after delivering a baby. But, now these diet trends are popular among everyone.

Problems associated with a fad diet

Because they’re following a strictly narrow protocol by cutting off wholesome food, a fad diet can cause the following symptoms:

• Dehydration
• Fatigue
• Stomach cramps
• Indigestion or Bloating
• Bowel issues
• Nausea and headache
• Stress, Depression, and Anxiety
• Several other issues are caused due to a lack of complete nutrition.

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