Reasons to Steer Clear of Fad Diets

It can be difficult to know how to approach weight loss in a sensible way, because whenever you pick up a magazine you find yourself confronted with the latest fad diet that can supposedly help you shift the pounds. Fad diets are designed to promote rapid weight loss, but this generally means that the focus is very much on the short term. You’re bound to lose weight if all you consume each day is a few bowls of soup or glasses of juice, because your calorie intake will be far below the number of calories your body burns.

Going on a diet leaves you feeling miserable and lethargic
Dieting isn’t much fun when you have to give up all the foods you love, even if it is just for a few weeks or months. However, these are weeks or months of your life that you’re never going to get back. In the time you spend on a fad diet you will find that you have so little energy that you cannot be bothered to do anything, and so your social life may suffer as a result. You won’t want to go out with friends if you’re lethargic and are unable to eat or drink what everyone else is eating and drinking. Plus, you will feel miserable and irritable because you’re hungry.

Fad diets do not really work
When you first start your diet you tend to be motivated, anyway, and stepping on the scales to discover that you’ve lost a few pounds can help you stick to the strict rules of the diet plan you’re following. Eventually your weight loss will slow down, though, and this is when you can find your commitment wavering. The chances are you will abandon your diet and go back to eating what is considered normal for you. Thus, fad diets do not offer a real solution to the issues you have with your weight, since they do not get you to change the eating habits that caused you to pile on the pounds in the first place.

Yo-yo dieting is bad for your health
Being overweight may be bad for your health, but so too is letting your weight go up and down all the time. Some studies suggest that you may be at increased risk of certain health problems, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and gallbladder disease. Also, losing and gaining weight can have a detrimental impact on your psychological well-being, affecting how you feel about yourself and your body.

Conclusion
There are plenty of reasons to steer clear of fad diets – not least the fact that, ultimately, you could end up heavier than before going on a diet. However, when you know that it is possible to lose a lot of weight in a very short space of time it is convenient to ignore the high rates of failure when it comes to weight maintenance and concentrate on the number of pounds being lost. Even if you’ve lost weight and gained it all back again before, you convince yourself that this time it will be different, though the likelihood is that it won’t be.