For the uninitiated, fad diets are usually quite restrictive diets don’t teach any healthy, long-lasting habits. They can be difficult to maintain and possibly even hazardous to your health. Your diet must be balanced, no matter what your goal in undertaking it is. Otherwise, it might leave you hungry, weak, and fatigued. It could negatively impact either your metabolism or your hormonal health and can increase stress or anxiety over food choices.
Besides, it also might just be a waste of time. If you need to prevent such consequences, you need to be aware of your choices and selections. So, what are some of the top fad diets to avoid? Read on to find out.
Blood Type Diets
Developed by the naturopathic physician Peter D’Adamo, this diet is based on the idea that foods we eat are chemically reactive to our blood type. For instance, Type O blood types are recommended with eat lean meats, fruits, and vegetable while avoiding dairy and wheat. Type A dieters are supposed to be vegetarian, and those who are Type B should avoid chicken, wheat, corn, tomatoes, sesame seeds, and peanuts. Unfortunately, there is no scientific proof that blood type will affect weight loss. The diet may also prove very restrictive depending on your blood type.
The Lunar Diet
If you didn’t know, there is a fasting diet that is regulated according to the lunar calendar. This recommends a fast allowing only the intake of juice and water during the full or new moon, where you could lose up to six pounds of water weight during a single day. There is an extended version, which starts with the daytime fast and continues with specific plans during each phase of the moon. This is perhaps one very strange diet —for the weight loss comes from not eating, has nothing to do with the moon, and will probably come right back.
The Atkins Diet
Low carb diets are not new, and the Atkins diet is perhaps one of the more popular of them. This diet has varying stages of carb elimination, starting quite extreme and followed by a gradual carb increase. It is complicated and calls for real monitoring of net carbohydrates, high fat, and high protein. Cutting out all carbs can lead you to micronutrient deficiencies and other health risks. It also may require multivitamins to avoid nutrient deficiency.
A healthy alternative to atkins diet, also being low carb, would be the keto diet. It is far more precise regarding how much and what you eat and actually change your metabolism and how your body uses energy. Not only does it help you lose weight, but it also leads to several other benefits for your health.
Raw Food Diets
This diet claims to have many health benefits. Boosting vegetable and fruit intake can help you lose weight and gain healthy nutrients, for sure. However, it is a very impractical diet. Those who use this diet think that cooking food destroys nutrients so they spend hours juicing, dehydrating, blending, sprouting, and cutting, chopping, germinating, and rehydrating. It is really impractical as far as food preparation goes. And cooked vegetables still have tons of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and nutrients. Cooking, in fact, can sometimes enhance nutrients while killing bacteria.
Cabbage Soup Diet
This is one of the original fad diets where the majority of the food consumed is cabbage soup, eaten two or three times each day for up to a week. You also add other low-calorie foods such as skim milk and bananas. It will yield weight loss in the short term, however, it is a quick fix diet. It can also cause bloating from all the cabbage, which also lacks protein. It isn’t a balanced diet in the long run, keeping at bay carbohydrates, healthy fats, and lean protein.
The Grapefruit Diet
It focuses all on grapefruit or grapefruit juice. It claims to help dieters lose 10-12 pounds over a span of 12 days due to the enzymes in the grapefruits that are claimed to be “fat busting.” Anytime you are following a low-calorie diet, you will lose weight, so that definitely falls into this category. However, a balanced meal is overall still preferable in the long run as it trains and educates one in food choices and their overall benefits.
Cookie Diets
The Hollywood cookie diet or the Smart for Life Diet promises that eating, yes, cookies will allow you to drop pounds. They are in fact just high-protein, high-fiber cookies designed for weight loss. One company makes them from egg and milk protein. This constitutes your breakfast, lunch, and snacks. Dinner is normal and it equals about 1,000-2,000 calories per day. You will definitely lose weight on this diet, but will end up possibly binging come dinnertime from being deprived all day long. Try instead to maintain healthy and balanced eating habits throughout the day to keep your metabolism geared up, but in equilibrium.
The many different unsafe diets available include others such as the South Beach, Zone, DASH, or others. When undertaking a new diet routine, you need to think about the long-term desired effects.
Do you want to lose weight? Do you have a more serious health issue to address? These should not be treated in the same way. Fad diets can cost a lot of wasted time and money. There are also several fad diets that can limit your macronutrient intake, thus causing possible nutrient deficiencies. They may give you short-term boosts or weight-loss but the long-term effects are usually much different.
You could gain weight quickly, or other harmful effects may happen, not to mention the long-term dangers of nutrient deprivation found with many of the diets. Instead of a fad, quick-fix diet, seek instead a diet tailored to your specific issues. For digestive issues, temporary elimination diets can be very effective. If you have an autoimmune disorder, anti-inflammatory diets can be both protective and sustainable. Want to lose weight? Try the ketogenic diet which limits carbs, but actually changes your body’s metabolism in order to help in becoming healthy and trim naturally.
