In our current society, many people are all too aware of the fast weight loss plans that circulate social media. Lose 10 pounds in six days. Lose five pounds in a week. Get abs in two weeks by drinking this concoction every day. The promises that fad diets are endless, which is why they keep gaining traction year after year. But are there any dangers to these diets?
This guide walks you through what a fad diet entails, why these programs are so popular, and why hopping on the next trend might not be such a good idea.
What Are Fad Diets? The Truth About These Miracles
Fad diets are not new. If anything, they have been the norm for decades. One minute, people were eating nothing but cabbage soup and the next, they were only having a handful of grapes and terming that as dinner.
So, what are fad diets? These are weight loss plans that promise significant results within short periods. For example, such a diet may offer to help you lose ten pounds in a week.
Yet if you look at the sustainable way to lose weight, you would know that this is too much weight to lose in such a short period.
But that’s not all – this speedy weight loss does not have a scientific backing. As such, anyone can come up with a “method” to lose weight and sell it as a miracle cure for weight gain. That’s why we have so many such plans.
How To Spot A Fad Diet – The Key Warning Signs
With so many meal plans available online, how can you tell what is a fad diet and what is not? Let’s look at the defining features of fad diets:
- They offer quick results. Most fad diets focus on helping people achieve results in just a few days or weeks. Usually, the focus is on weight loss, e.g., lose 10 pounds in just five days. But in some cases, the diet can focus on other health outcomes, e.g., get a flat stomach in just ten days by following a certain plan. No matter the goal, the timeframe is often quite small.
- They encourage the elimination of some foods. Often, fad diets are strict about what you can and cannot eat. Many of them focus on eliminating things like carbs, fats, and sugars. For example, you may go on a two-week plan that requires you to eat less than 50 grams of carbs per day.
Also Warning Signs
- They promote some foods as being the best for health goals. Many plans promote certain foods and will require you to consume such foods to achieve your goal. For example, you may need to eat certain vegetables with all your meals or eat a certain fruit. The focus on some foods makes these food groups seem superior to others even though that may not be the case.
- They follow strict patterns. In most cases, the meal plans are rigid such that you can only eat some foods at specific times. E.g., your breakfast can be one boiled egg with plain coffee followed by a lunch of two boiled eggs with some kale on the side. The focus is on a strict schedule such that if you deviate from the eating plan, you are deemed not to be focused on the goal.
Most importantly, these diets are not based on scientific research and they offer results that sound too good to be true. For example, if a plan suggests that you can lose a pound a day, this is miraculous but not science-backed.
Examples Of Fad Diets – See The Warning Signs
If I was to list all the fad diets we have had over the last few decades, this blog post would turn into a book. So, I will focus on some of the top examples that have been the focus of many studies:
- The cabbage soup diet. Like the name implies, people thought that the easiest way to lose weight was by drinking large amounts of cabbage soup. Cabbages are already very low in calories. As such, their soup is also very low in calories. So, while people would fill up on volume, they would not take in much as fuel. They lost weight and thought the cabbage soup was the miracle, yet what they had done was essentially go into a calorie deficit.
- The grapefruit diet. The goal behind this diet was for people to have one grapefruit with each meal. But that was not all. They were also to follow a restrictive eating plan. As people started losing weight, they attributed the weight loss to the grapefruit, forgetting that they had also made changes to their eating plans, hence the weight loss.
- The keto diet. Very many people hopped on to this trend, especially after celebrities started claiming it had helped them shed the extra pounds. The idea is to consume foods that are high in fat while limiting those rich in carbs. Essentially, this often leads to a decrease in calorie intake due to the low carb meals. But people think that it’s the high fat that is to thank for their weight loss!
There is nothing special about these or any other fad diets. They only help people limit their calorie intake, which is why people lose weight. You would get the same results with just about any other change in your eating patterns.
Listing The Dangers Of Fad Diets – Know Them All
Fad diets promise fast results in a very short time. And we all have to agree that such promises are quite enticing. After all, you don’t have to wait years before seeing the results. But is there a danger to this fast delivery?
Below are dangers that you must consider when looking at any such diet:
The First Three
- They can result in malnutrition. Most fad diets focus on specific foods while completely eliminating some food groups. But our bodies are not as selective in their needs. When you go for long periods without a balanced diet, you can suffer deficiencies in key vitamins and minerals.
- They can result in muscle loss. While you may think that you are losing fat from your strict diet, you might actually be losing muscle. After all, when your body does not get the nutrients it needs, it targets your reserves, including muscle which is essential to normal body functioning.
- They can lower your metabolism. One of the reasons people suffer metabolic slowdown in fad diets is because they are under-fueled. Their bodies do not have enough energy to keep up with their main functions. So, they come up with new ways to conserve energy by limiting their energy usage. You end up feeling more sluggish and spend a lot of time lying around and do not feel like being active or doing anything much.
Three More Problems to Consider
- They can result in dehydration. Many people have success with fad diets in the first few days as they see a drop in their overall weight. But this is mostly water loss. In some cases, the water loss can be so drastic that it results in dehydration which can have adverse effects on your health.
- They can result in an electrolyte imbalance. What happens when you don’t eat enough food to fuel your activities and are not taking in enough micronutrients to support normal body functioning? For one, you end up with an electrolyte imbalance. And secondly, you can suffer from serious health issues due to the imbalance.
- They pave the way for eating disorders. The goal of fad diets is to help you lose weight in record time. As such, the focus is on the results rather than how you can maintain a healthy lifestyle. People who go on such diets are thus likely to develop a fear of eating certain foods and may show signs of eating disorders, whether it be binge eating or restrictive eating.
Three More To Go
- They can endanger your health. On one hand, you can suffer a deficiency in key nutrients because of the elimination. On the other hand, you can suffer health issues relating to the overconsumption of some foods. For example, the fat focus in the keto diet results in a high intake of saturated fats that can affect your heart health.
- They can make you anxious about eating. When you must follow a strict eating plan, it’s easy to feel anxious about mealtimes. For some people, the anxiety can be overwhelming, resulting in physiological stress that makes it hard to function like they normally would. And in some cases, this can result in a bad relationship with food.
- They have no scientific backing. Anyone can wake up and prove that a certain diet worked for them and helped them lose weight. While this is a good thing as it opens people up to new ideas, it also means that many fad diets rely on anecdotal evidence. So, by following such an eating plan, you might be putting yourself at risk as there is no scientific evidence backing the claims.
Most Importantly….
The results are often not sustainable. Fad diets focus on getting you to lose weight or achieve a specific health outcome in days or weeks. But they don’t think about the big picture. As such, as soon as people achieve their goals, they stop sticking to the strict plan and instead go back to their old ways. In many cases, people binge on all the things they could not eat before, resulting in weight gain.
Since fad diets do not teach people the basics to healthy lifestyles, many people get stuck on that yo-yo pattern. They go on one fad diet after the other, losing and gaining weight at each stage. And like science has shown, this is even more dangerous than being overweight.
How To Avoid Fad Diets And Choose Sustainability
The allure of fad diets is understandable. After all, they promise great results within a short time. But their dangers are not to be ignored. Not only can they affect your physical health but they can also have lasting effects on your mental wellbeing.
Plus, the results are often unsustainable as the process focuses on restriction that cannot work in the long term.
So, what’s the alternative to starving yourself every few weeks when you have an event coming up? Think of your health and fitness journey as a lifelong process. Choose sustainable habits that you can keep up in the long term. These include eating more whole foods, moderating what you eat, finding a balance between binging and restrictions, and opting for a variety of food sources.
Get Professional Help
If you need help getting on track, you can always contact me. I am a certified diet coach who focuses on helping you get on the sustainable path to your health and fitness goals without sacrificing your physical or mental wellbeing. Sign up for a consultation using the form below.