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Longevity for You
Fad Diets
May Not Be Right for You
by
Stephen Lau
May Not Be Right for You
by
Stephen Lau
The Atkins Diet
The Beverley Hills Diet
The Hollywood Diet
The Intuitive Diet
The Slim Fast Diet
The South Beach Diet
The Sugar Busters Diet
The Weight Watchers Diet
The Zone Diet
Other fad diets
Once your body has been detoxified and cleansed of toxins, you are already on the road to recovery and wellness, which are fundamental to longevity. You are like a new person with a brand new body. Now is the time to re-evaluate your lifestyle. Remember, longevity has the signature of Nature, which is simplicity at its best.
Unfortunately, many individuals are too eager to rush to the finishing line to claim their prize of wellness; in doing so, they join the crash course of fad diets touted to give them weight control, weight loss, and weight management; and some even claim to be anti-aging.
Unfortunately, Nature cannot be rushed.
.
Most, if not all, popular fad diets are not right for you. They give you anything but your weight loss.
Nowadays, fad diets are popular for two reasons: one, the public demand them; two, the public are gullible.
These fad diets are no miracle cures for your health problems. They do not make you lose the weight you want to lose - at least not permanently. These fad diets will continue to emerge as long as the public are willing to part with their money. The only good news is that the public are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of diets to their long-term health. The bad news is that it is a no-win situation for many who seek a quick fix for their chronic health problems. Fad diets offer no solution to your health problems, and they are not anti-aging.
Do some of these fad diets really work? Can you lose weight permanently? I don't think so. (Read my web page To Lose Weight Is Like Washing Dishes In A Sink Of Dirty Water to find out why it is so difficult to lose weight.)
Take a look at some of the most popular fad diets on the market, examine their pros and cons, and evaluate them. They may not make you healthy, but surely make them wealthy. With the humongous marketing dollars behind them, and the lack of dieting fundamentals on the part of the gullible buying public, there will always be new fad diets as long as there are consensual victims who are most willing to part with their cash but not their food.
The following are some of the more popular fad diets:
The Atkins Diet
The Atkins Diet has been around since the early seventies. It is one of the most popular fad diets as well as one of the most controversial diets. It is based on the consumption of meat and high-protein fat to the exclusion of most carbohydrates, fruits, and vegetables.
How it works
The Atkins Diet comes in four phases.
The Induction phase induces weight loss by changing your body’s chemistry from carbohydrate burning to fat burning metabolism; thereby stabilizing your blood sugar and curbing your sugar cravings.
This phase lasts a minimum of two weeks. During this phase, you may eat as much fat and protein as your like, but no more than 20 grams of carbohydrates. In addition, you must eat absolutely no fruit, bread, pasta, grain, starchy vegetable or dairy product other than cheese, cream or butter. Furthermore, you must not eat nuts or seeds in the first two weeks. Do you think you can handle that?
The Ongoing Weight Loss phase requires you to continue to derive the majority of your carbohydrates from vegetables. However, you may gradually add more portions of vegetables, and even add nuts, seeds, and berries. In this phase, your rate of weight loss may decrease substantially. Accordingly, you may become discouraged and disheartened. That may well be the beginning phase of your dropout.
The Pre-Maintenance phase prepares you to change your eating habits for the rest of your life - an optimum lifetime eating program. You may increase your carbohydrate intake, as you continue to lose no more than 10 pounds during this phase. Ideally, you should spend at least a month, and preferably two or three, in this phase.
The Lifetime Maintenance phase allows you to eat in moderation many of the foods you used to enjoy, except of course sugar. If you have the endurance and perseverance to have survived the first three phases, congratulations and more power to you!
The pros
You can lose weight, as much as 15 pounds in a few months. Wow! That is enticing enough to those with a weight problem. You can eat meat, dairy products, and many other fatty foods. If sounds too good to be true, and maybe it is.
You eat very little carbohydrates in order to regulate insulin production, thereby resulting in less fat storage and fewer food cravings. That is based on the assumption that if your body does not have any carbohydrate to turn to for energy, it will naturally turn to your fat reserve as the sole source of energy, as well as the fact that without carbohydrate there will be reduced insulin and subsequently suppressed food cravings. This sums up how you achieve weight loss for weight control.
The cons
You may stop weight loss after a year or so. It is more of a short-term weight management program. Well, at least for a year or so you may be in good shape, even though you may be losing just water and not calories yet.
However, you may have long-term health complications to your heart, kidneys, liver, and bones, due to your intake of food high in saturated fat. Maybe you would worry about your health problems later. Research studies have never addressed the possible loss on calcium or the potential high-protein danger to your kidneys. Your bone and kidney health may be the best testament to the efficacy of the diet further down the road. By then, it might be too late, or you may not even know who the real culprit was. Your body may have become deficient in certain vitamins and fiber due to reduced vegetable and fruit consumption. Maybe you could remedy your deficiency by taking more vitamin supplements - or maybe you would even find a miracle cure for all your deficiencies due to the diet.
Is the Atkins Diet one of those fad diets you may wish to consider?
The Beverly Hills Diet
The Beverly Hills Diet is a type of food-combining diet for weight control, vaguely based upon theories of digestion. The cornerstone of the Beverly Hills Diet Plan is fruit, and more fruit. It is one of those fad diets that have caught public attention due to its simplicity.
How it works
The Beverly Hills Diet emphasizes the conscious combining of foods for weight management. According to the Beverly Hills Diet, enzymes found in food activate your digestion, and therefore cautious combining of foods may avoid indigestion, which often results in overweight.
The Beverly Hills Diet recommends eating fruit by itself, and never eating protein with carbohydrate in order to avoid food indigestion and storage of body fat. It begins with a 35-day plan that allows you to eat a limited amount of specific items at each meal.
For the first ten days, you can eat only fruit. One might say that this fad diet is a bit fruity too, if not anything else. On day eleven, you may start eating carbohydrates with butter added. You can breathe a deep sigh of relief! On day nineteen, you may start eating protein and fatty treats. What a treat for you!
The pros
Unlike most other fad diets, you do not have to count calories or grams of carbohydrate or fat. That is especially good for those who always have a problem with numbers. You may eat many fruits. Surely, you will get many vitamins - not to mention the unwanted sugar as a bonus too!
The cons
It does not tackle the issue of portion control or exercise, both of which are critical to the success of any weight management program. It may be too restrictive to give your body the nutrients you need to stay healthy.
The Blood Type Diet (BTD)
The Blood Type Diet (BTD) is based on Dr. Peter D’Adamo’s book Eat Right 4 Your Type. This Eat Right for Your Type Diet focuses on the blood type that presumably determines also the types of food you should eat. Apparently, your reactions to different types of food account for your weight loss or weight control.
How it works
When you use the individualized characteristics of your blood type as a signpost for eating and anti-aging living, you will be healthier, thereby naturally reaching your ideal weight as well as slowing your process of aging. It is something like killing two birds with one stone. To put it simply, your blood type is responsible for varying functions of your digestive and immune systems.
The pros
You get to learn more health issues related to your blood type - and that is all there is to it.
The cons
You may falsely believe that calories have nothing to do with your weight gain - but calories may have everything to do with your weight loss or weight management.
The theory that your blood type determines not only your susceptibility to disease but also your ability to process specific foods does not seem to hold much water from the scientific point of view, especially the concept that your blood type may even determine your personality.
Can your blood type suggest your predisposition to a particular dysfunction or vulnerability to a certain disease? Can you really identify a diet plan, determine appropriate vitamin and mineral supplements, and develop exercise regimens simply based on your blood type? Should you not take this preposterous concept with a spoonful of salt?
The Hollywood Diet
The Hollywood Diet is essentially a juice fast - and nothing more. It has become one of those fad diets simply because it comes from Hollywood.
How it works
The Hollywood Diet disrupts your regular food intake while cleansing your digestive system with natural fruit juices as a mild laxative to flush out toxins from your body system. Consumption of juice at regular intervals throughout the day may help balance your blood sugar level and control your hunger, thereby achieving weight control. This may or may not be true. However, one positive attribute is that it will detoxify your body.
The pros
It is easy to follow. You get many vitamins and minerals from your daily consumption of fresh juice. It cleanses your bowels too.
The cons
You lose water, rather than your body weight. There is another problem: Can you go on drinking juice indefinitely?
The Intuitive Diet
The Intuitive Diet is one of those "creative" fad diets. Professor Steven Hawks of Brigham Young University created the Intuitive Diet. He claimed that he lost 50 pounds and kept it off for more than five years.
It is a no-diet diet: you eat by “intuitive eating.” Essentially, you eat whatever you want to eat only when you are really hungry. Instead of manipulating what you may or may not eat in terms of calories to control your weight, you eat whatever that is most appealing to you, thereby assuaging your food cravings. The catch is that you must have the intuition to stop when you know you are full - unfortunately, that is something that most people simply do not have.
The pros
Since the diet is based on hunger and satiety, you may eat anything that you fancy. There is no inhibition, except the quantity.
The diet is simple: Instead of counting calories, like most other fad diets, you simply pay attention to your hunger pangs. You eat because you are hungry, and not because you are emotionally upset, the food is there, or the food is appealing.
The cons
The problem is that most people simply do not have that intuition to know when to stop eating even though they are full. If they had that intuition, they would not have their eating problem in the first place.
Eating whatever you crave, including junk food, may not be healthy to you: you may lose your weight as well as your health in the long run.
The Slim Fast Diet
The Slim Fast Diet focuses on a “healthy” shake for breakfast, another one for lunch, and a healthy dinner of your choice, with several small Slim Fast snacks in between. Essentially, you consistently buy more Slim Fast products. You may not be lighter in your body weight, but your wallet will definitely be lighter in the end.
How it works
The Slim Fast Diet calls for a shake at breakfast and at lunch, and then a sensible dinner, with two additional pieces of fruit and a Slim Fast nutrition bar as needed during the day. The sensible dinner may be any meal, as long as the two other meals are the diet shakes. The Slim Fast diet averages about 1,200 calories a day, thereby achieving weight control.
The pros
The diet plan is simple to follow with little or no fuss. Complication in any diet plan is a recipe for failure.
The cons
The diet shake is a little more than an expensive sugar-loaded milk supplement: the main ingredients are nothing but skim milk, sugar, cocoa, and fructose fortified with vitamins and minerals. Instead of Slim Fast, you might just as well drink milk and swallow a few vitamin pills. In that way, you may at least save some money. In addition, the extra carbohydrates (40 grams) with added sugar may not be beneficial to your health at all.
The low caloric intake (slightly over 1,000 calories per day) may make it difficult for you to sustain the diet over a long period. Realistically, you need at least more than 1200 calories a day. That is why many individuals fail to adhere to the diet plan after a while. It is one of those fad diets that are difficult to sustain over the long haul.
The South Beach Diet
The South Beach Diet, one of the most popular fad diets, is created by Dr. Arthur Agatston, a cardiologist, to enable you to choose the right type of carbohydrate, fat and protein, as well as to eat normal-sized portions, thereby becoming healthier and losing more weight in the process.
How it works
The South Beach Diet is based on the concept that if you eat bad carbohydrates and fats you feel hungrier, causing you to eat more, resulting in weight gain. In exchange for eating right, you not only become healthier but also may lose eight to thirteen pounds in just two weeks.
The South Beach Diet works in three phases: the first two phases for a specific time-frame, and the third phase for life.
In the first phase, you restrict all carbohydrates, while you eat only lean meat, fish, and shell fish.
In the second phase, you may eat some of the restricted foods in phase one, while eating three normal-sized meals with two snacks each day. However, the rate of weight loss is considerably less, as in most other fad diets.
In the third phase, you eat a balanced diet for maintenance, and for life.
The pros
You can lose weight, as much as eight to thirteen pounds in two weeks. What an initial incentive for some eager beavers who want to lose weight drastically and instantaneously without much effort - weight loss without pain!
You may eat three normal-size meals with two snacks each day. That sounds normal. On top of that, you can eat meat and dairy products. It does not seem so bad after all, especially if you have already developed a craving for cheese in the American culture.
You get to learn to eat the right type of carbohydrates and fats. Eating bad carbohydrates and fats will make you feel hungrier, causing you to eat more, resulting in weight gain.
You do not have to count calories, or weigh food portions. That is a plus when one is living in an already complex and complicated world.
The cons
You may be losing water, not calories. Isn't it true of most fad diets?
You cannot eat bread, potatoes, pasta, baked goods, candies, cookies, ice cream, sugar and alcohol. To most people, that is already asking too much, if not the impossible.
Just as in all fad diets, you may need great discipline to succeed long term. Discipline is always one of the key factors in the success of any diet plan. The problem is that you simply may not have that kind of discipline, or else you would not have your weight problem in the first place. If your weight starts to climb, you have to go back to previous phases, and start all over again. Can you overcome that kind of frustration? Are you a candidate for that kind of persistence and perseverance? Be realistic!
The Sugar Busters Diet
The Sugar Busters Diet is based on a best-selling book proposing elimination of foods that are most likely to be converted into sugar in your body.
The author claims that by avoiding sugar and food high in refined carbohydrates, you will increase your insulin sensitivity, lose weight, and be healthy, and that insulin resistance is the culprit of obesity.
How it works
The Sugar Busters Diet consists of an estimated 30 percent proteins, 40 percent fats, and 30 percent carbohydrates. You may eat red meat, poultry, fish, dairy products, olive oil, nuts, and selected vegetables and fruits. You can eat carbohydrates, such as sweet potatoes, whole grain bread, whole-wheat pasta, brown rice, only in small amount. You must avoid potatoes, carrots, and refined carbohydrates, such as white bread, pasta, and rice. Of course, eating refined sugar products is a definite taboo.
The pros
You may get to know more about diabetes. This knowledge may be beneficial to your overall health further down the road. You may gain health benefits, such as lowering cholesterol level and blood pressure. You may have significant weight loss if you diligently follow the diet.
The cons
The diet is too low in dietary fiber. You may falsely believe that sugar is the only culprit of your weight problem. It is not: if you have weight problem, you probably have a host of other health problems as well, not just the problem with sugar.
The Weight Watchers Diet
The Weight Watchers Diet, founded in the early 1960s by Jean Nidetch, is one of the most popular worldwide weight-loss fad diets with a proven forty-year record of accomplishment in helping dieters to lose weight through a global network of classes or weekly meetings involving over 25 million people.
Celebrities, such as the Duchess of York, may boost your confidence. You may always find a role model of success. Well, you can always have a role model when you look at any of those emaciated and undernourished fashion models as a carrot stick for a never-attainable “ideal” body weight and shape.
How it works
The Weight Watchers Diet is reliant on a food exchange system, in which you have a given set number of calories and food exchanges to follow for each meal and snack, as well as a set number of points for each day. You can add up your points as you like. Does the whole concept sound complicated, if not challenging, to you, especially if math is never your strong suit?
The pros
You can virtually eat any food you like - after all, it is all about calories. But aren't all other fad diets about calories too?
You get support worldwide. Sometimes it is comforting to know there are millions out there searching for the same miracle cure for their common health problems. It is pathetic, yet comforting, to know you are not alone.
The cons
You may lose weight only gradually and very slowly - no more than two pounds a day. If you are looking for a quick fix, you may be grossly disappointed.
You may not like to spend the rest of your life counting calories and points. It may not increase your weight, but it will certainly increase your math skill.
The Zone Diet
The Zone Diet, which has been a favorite diet in Hollywood, aims at controlling your weight through correct food intake. It is a low-calorie diet, dividing your calories into 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent proteins, and 30 percent fats. The Zone Diet was a creation of the U.S. biochemist, Barry Sears.
How it works
The Zone is a stage where you will supposedly reach if you eat a diet that contains precisely 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent proteins, and 30 percent fats. Sears claims that eating this way will not only produce optimum fat burning and weight loss, but also help you fight various types of disease, including cancer and heart attack. In addition, you will reach a balance between insulin (a hormone regulating the metabolism of carbohydrates and fats) and glycogen (sugar stored for later use as energy).
The Zone diet requires you to work out how many grams of protein you need a day from the tables, and then eat this much protein divided into “blocks” of seven grams each, nine grams of carbohydrate block, and two grams of fat block to stay in the Zone. Doesn't it sound overwhelming to you, especially if math was never your best subject in school?
The pros
You simply follow the correct portion sizes of your food intake. You may eat very-low-fat poultry, fish, dairy and vegetarian protein, as well as carbohydrates of mostly fruits and vegetables.
The cons
You may not eat potatoes, pasta, rice, white bread, corn, sugar, as well as high GI (Glycemic Index - indicating the blood glucose level of foods) fruits, such as carrots and bananas.
Essentially, you simply eat less - something you may not like in the end. Obviously, eating less may always provide a solution to overweight. The problem with most people is that they want to eat more, not less, and still have less weight. It is like eating your cake and having it too. Surely, you can have both, plus the bonus of a few extra pounds!
Other fad diets
In addition to the above, your choice of fad diets is infinite: Big Apple Diet, Cambridge Diet, Grapefruit Diet, Peanut Diet, just to mention a few more from a long list of fad diets that could go on almost indefinitely.
More fad diets will continue to emerge because these fad diets all fail in the end, not because these fad diets fail to deliver as promised, but because the individuals fail to adhere to them. They all want to lose the gain without the pain. They all want a qucik fix.
Switching fom one fad diet to another is one of the underlying causes of eating disorders. For more information on bing eating, bulimia, and other eating disorders, go to my website Overcoming Eating Disorders.
To control your weight for optimum health, you need to detoxify your body of the toxins accumulated over the years; you need to be physically healthy; and, most important of all, you need to eat less. If you fail to do these, all fad diets will fail you in the end. Your only option is to turn to yet another one of these fad diets that may come along.
12 Steps To A Complete Body Detox is a complete step-by-step program not only to eliminate toxins but also to break the vicious toxic circle in your body, thereby instrumental in creating the “art-and-science” of reversing aging effects. The package also comes with three other books: Acid and Alkaline Foods, 10 Easy, Low Allergy Gluten Free Recipes, and Health Success Journal.
After your detoxification, eat a balanced diet that gives your body a balanced acid and alkaline level (pH) for rejuvenation.
The Acid-Alkaline Diet provides excellent information on how to alkalize your diet. Many experts believe that a balance of acidity and alkalinity, known as your balanced pH level in your body, will make you disease-free.
If you are healthy, physically, mentally, and spiritually, your body will have acquired the body wisdom that will tell you what to eat and what not to eat. (Read my web page Healthy Eating.)
Forever Young - Anti-Aging Guide offers rejuvenation techniques to prevent and reverse aging through eating correctly. The package comes with “the garden diet”, “the orange juice diet," and the world’s first anti-aging diet followed by Mehusela and other ancient long-lived people, a diet for easier natural birth, and many others, including easy and healthy recipes to keep you forever young.
Any quick fix, especially in the form of fad diets or pharmaceuticals, is only adding insult to injury. Eat naturally, and you will live long. This is a simple phenomenon. Also, go organic whenever possible. Organic in 10 Steps provides everything you need to know about going organic.
Fad diets are no miracle cures for your health problems. Fad diets may not be right for you.
Return from Why Fad Diets May Not Be Right For You to Home Page.
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
Read other related articles by Stephen Lau
Healthy Eating
Healthy eating avoids not only all toxic foods but also controversial foods. Health food brings about good nutrition for healthy longevity.
A Healthy Lifestyle For Health Rejuvenation
A healthy lifestyle maximizes longevity and minimizes disease by internal cleansing through detoxification, fasting, foot patches, skin brushing, herbs, and exercise.
To Lose Weight Is Like Washing Dishes In A Sink Of Dirty Water
To lose weight is always difficult and almost impossible without knowing the basics of weight loss. Weight management is anti-aging.
Fasting For Longevity
Fasting is anti-aging rejuvenation of a toxic body through detoxification for optimum wholesome wellness, contributing to your longevity.
Unfortunately, many individuals are too eager to rush to the finishing line to claim their prize of wellness; in doing so, they join the crash course of fad diets touted to give them weight control, weight loss, and weight management; and some even claim to be anti-aging.
Unfortunately, Nature cannot be rushed.
.
Most, if not all, popular fad diets are not right for you. They give you anything but your weight loss.
Nowadays, fad diets are popular for two reasons: one, the public demand them; two, the public are gullible.
These fad diets are no miracle cures for your health problems. They do not make you lose the weight you want to lose - at least not permanently. These fad diets will continue to emerge as long as the public are willing to part with their money. The only good news is that the public are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of diets to their long-term health. The bad news is that it is a no-win situation for many who seek a quick fix for their chronic health problems. Fad diets offer no solution to your health problems, and they are not anti-aging.
Do some of these fad diets really work? Can you lose weight permanently? I don't think so. (Read my web page To Lose Weight Is Like Washing Dishes In A Sink Of Dirty Water to find out why it is so difficult to lose weight.)
Take a look at some of the most popular fad diets on the market, examine their pros and cons, and evaluate them. They may not make you healthy, but surely make them wealthy. With the humongous marketing dollars behind them, and the lack of dieting fundamentals on the part of the gullible buying public, there will always be new fad diets as long as there are consensual victims who are most willing to part with their cash but not their food.
The following are some of the more popular fad diets:
The Atkins Diet
The Atkins Diet has been around since the early seventies. It is one of the most popular fad diets as well as one of the most controversial diets. It is based on the consumption of meat and high-protein fat to the exclusion of most carbohydrates, fruits, and vegetables.
How it works
The Atkins Diet comes in four phases.
The Induction phase induces weight loss by changing your body’s chemistry from carbohydrate burning to fat burning metabolism; thereby stabilizing your blood sugar and curbing your sugar cravings.
This phase lasts a minimum of two weeks. During this phase, you may eat as much fat and protein as your like, but no more than 20 grams of carbohydrates. In addition, you must eat absolutely no fruit, bread, pasta, grain, starchy vegetable or dairy product other than cheese, cream or butter. Furthermore, you must not eat nuts or seeds in the first two weeks. Do you think you can handle that?
The Ongoing Weight Loss phase requires you to continue to derive the majority of your carbohydrates from vegetables. However, you may gradually add more portions of vegetables, and even add nuts, seeds, and berries. In this phase, your rate of weight loss may decrease substantially. Accordingly, you may become discouraged and disheartened. That may well be the beginning phase of your dropout.
The Pre-Maintenance phase prepares you to change your eating habits for the rest of your life - an optimum lifetime eating program. You may increase your carbohydrate intake, as you continue to lose no more than 10 pounds during this phase. Ideally, you should spend at least a month, and preferably two or three, in this phase.
The Lifetime Maintenance phase allows you to eat in moderation many of the foods you used to enjoy, except of course sugar. If you have the endurance and perseverance to have survived the first three phases, congratulations and more power to you!
The pros
You can lose weight, as much as 15 pounds in a few months. Wow! That is enticing enough to those with a weight problem. You can eat meat, dairy products, and many other fatty foods. If sounds too good to be true, and maybe it is.
You eat very little carbohydrates in order to regulate insulin production, thereby resulting in less fat storage and fewer food cravings. That is based on the assumption that if your body does not have any carbohydrate to turn to for energy, it will naturally turn to your fat reserve as the sole source of energy, as well as the fact that without carbohydrate there will be reduced insulin and subsequently suppressed food cravings. This sums up how you achieve weight loss for weight control.
The cons
You may stop weight loss after a year or so. It is more of a short-term weight management program. Well, at least for a year or so you may be in good shape, even though you may be losing just water and not calories yet.
However, you may have long-term health complications to your heart, kidneys, liver, and bones, due to your intake of food high in saturated fat. Maybe you would worry about your health problems later. Research studies have never addressed the possible loss on calcium or the potential high-protein danger to your kidneys. Your bone and kidney health may be the best testament to the efficacy of the diet further down the road. By then, it might be too late, or you may not even know who the real culprit was. Your body may have become deficient in certain vitamins and fiber due to reduced vegetable and fruit consumption. Maybe you could remedy your deficiency by taking more vitamin supplements - or maybe you would even find a miracle cure for all your deficiencies due to the diet.
Is the Atkins Diet one of those fad diets you may wish to consider?
The Beverly Hills Diet
The Beverly Hills Diet is a type of food-combining diet for weight control, vaguely based upon theories of digestion. The cornerstone of the Beverly Hills Diet Plan is fruit, and more fruit. It is one of those fad diets that have caught public attention due to its simplicity.
How it works
The Beverly Hills Diet emphasizes the conscious combining of foods for weight management. According to the Beverly Hills Diet, enzymes found in food activate your digestion, and therefore cautious combining of foods may avoid indigestion, which often results in overweight.
The Beverly Hills Diet recommends eating fruit by itself, and never eating protein with carbohydrate in order to avoid food indigestion and storage of body fat. It begins with a 35-day plan that allows you to eat a limited amount of specific items at each meal.
For the first ten days, you can eat only fruit. One might say that this fad diet is a bit fruity too, if not anything else. On day eleven, you may start eating carbohydrates with butter added. You can breathe a deep sigh of relief! On day nineteen, you may start eating protein and fatty treats. What a treat for you!
The pros
Unlike most other fad diets, you do not have to count calories or grams of carbohydrate or fat. That is especially good for those who always have a problem with numbers. You may eat many fruits. Surely, you will get many vitamins - not to mention the unwanted sugar as a bonus too!
The cons
It does not tackle the issue of portion control or exercise, both of which are critical to the success of any weight management program. It may be too restrictive to give your body the nutrients you need to stay healthy.
The Blood Type Diet (BTD)
The Blood Type Diet (BTD) is based on Dr. Peter D’Adamo’s book Eat Right 4 Your Type. This Eat Right for Your Type Diet focuses on the blood type that presumably determines also the types of food you should eat. Apparently, your reactions to different types of food account for your weight loss or weight control.
How it works
When you use the individualized characteristics of your blood type as a signpost for eating and anti-aging living, you will be healthier, thereby naturally reaching your ideal weight as well as slowing your process of aging. It is something like killing two birds with one stone. To put it simply, your blood type is responsible for varying functions of your digestive and immune systems.
The pros
You get to learn more health issues related to your blood type - and that is all there is to it.
The cons
You may falsely believe that calories have nothing to do with your weight gain - but calories may have everything to do with your weight loss or weight management.
The theory that your blood type determines not only your susceptibility to disease but also your ability to process specific foods does not seem to hold much water from the scientific point of view, especially the concept that your blood type may even determine your personality.
Can your blood type suggest your predisposition to a particular dysfunction or vulnerability to a certain disease? Can you really identify a diet plan, determine appropriate vitamin and mineral supplements, and develop exercise regimens simply based on your blood type? Should you not take this preposterous concept with a spoonful of salt?
The Hollywood Diet
The Hollywood Diet is essentially a juice fast - and nothing more. It has become one of those fad diets simply because it comes from Hollywood.
How it works
The Hollywood Diet disrupts your regular food intake while cleansing your digestive system with natural fruit juices as a mild laxative to flush out toxins from your body system. Consumption of juice at regular intervals throughout the day may help balance your blood sugar level and control your hunger, thereby achieving weight control. This may or may not be true. However, one positive attribute is that it will detoxify your body.
The pros
It is easy to follow. You get many vitamins and minerals from your daily consumption of fresh juice. It cleanses your bowels too.
The cons
You lose water, rather than your body weight. There is another problem: Can you go on drinking juice indefinitely?
The Intuitive Diet
The Intuitive Diet is one of those "creative" fad diets. Professor Steven Hawks of Brigham Young University created the Intuitive Diet. He claimed that he lost 50 pounds and kept it off for more than five years.
It is a no-diet diet: you eat by “intuitive eating.” Essentially, you eat whatever you want to eat only when you are really hungry. Instead of manipulating what you may or may not eat in terms of calories to control your weight, you eat whatever that is most appealing to you, thereby assuaging your food cravings. The catch is that you must have the intuition to stop when you know you are full - unfortunately, that is something that most people simply do not have.
The pros
Since the diet is based on hunger and satiety, you may eat anything that you fancy. There is no inhibition, except the quantity.
The diet is simple: Instead of counting calories, like most other fad diets, you simply pay attention to your hunger pangs. You eat because you are hungry, and not because you are emotionally upset, the food is there, or the food is appealing.
The cons
The problem is that most people simply do not have that intuition to know when to stop eating even though they are full. If they had that intuition, they would not have their eating problem in the first place.
Eating whatever you crave, including junk food, may not be healthy to you: you may lose your weight as well as your health in the long run.
The Slim Fast Diet
The Slim Fast Diet focuses on a “healthy” shake for breakfast, another one for lunch, and a healthy dinner of your choice, with several small Slim Fast snacks in between. Essentially, you consistently buy more Slim Fast products. You may not be lighter in your body weight, but your wallet will definitely be lighter in the end.
How it works
The Slim Fast Diet calls for a shake at breakfast and at lunch, and then a sensible dinner, with two additional pieces of fruit and a Slim Fast nutrition bar as needed during the day. The sensible dinner may be any meal, as long as the two other meals are the diet shakes. The Slim Fast diet averages about 1,200 calories a day, thereby achieving weight control.
The pros
The diet plan is simple to follow with little or no fuss. Complication in any diet plan is a recipe for failure.
The cons
The diet shake is a little more than an expensive sugar-loaded milk supplement: the main ingredients are nothing but skim milk, sugar, cocoa, and fructose fortified with vitamins and minerals. Instead of Slim Fast, you might just as well drink milk and swallow a few vitamin pills. In that way, you may at least save some money. In addition, the extra carbohydrates (40 grams) with added sugar may not be beneficial to your health at all.
The low caloric intake (slightly over 1,000 calories per day) may make it difficult for you to sustain the diet over a long period. Realistically, you need at least more than 1200 calories a day. That is why many individuals fail to adhere to the diet plan after a while. It is one of those fad diets that are difficult to sustain over the long haul.
The South Beach Diet
The South Beach Diet, one of the most popular fad diets, is created by Dr. Arthur Agatston, a cardiologist, to enable you to choose the right type of carbohydrate, fat and protein, as well as to eat normal-sized portions, thereby becoming healthier and losing more weight in the process.
How it works
The South Beach Diet is based on the concept that if you eat bad carbohydrates and fats you feel hungrier, causing you to eat more, resulting in weight gain. In exchange for eating right, you not only become healthier but also may lose eight to thirteen pounds in just two weeks.
The South Beach Diet works in three phases: the first two phases for a specific time-frame, and the third phase for life.
In the first phase, you restrict all carbohydrates, while you eat only lean meat, fish, and shell fish.
In the second phase, you may eat some of the restricted foods in phase one, while eating three normal-sized meals with two snacks each day. However, the rate of weight loss is considerably less, as in most other fad diets.
In the third phase, you eat a balanced diet for maintenance, and for life.
The pros
You can lose weight, as much as eight to thirteen pounds in two weeks. What an initial incentive for some eager beavers who want to lose weight drastically and instantaneously without much effort - weight loss without pain!
You may eat three normal-size meals with two snacks each day. That sounds normal. On top of that, you can eat meat and dairy products. It does not seem so bad after all, especially if you have already developed a craving for cheese in the American culture.
You get to learn to eat the right type of carbohydrates and fats. Eating bad carbohydrates and fats will make you feel hungrier, causing you to eat more, resulting in weight gain.
You do not have to count calories, or weigh food portions. That is a plus when one is living in an already complex and complicated world.
The cons
You may be losing water, not calories. Isn't it true of most fad diets?
You cannot eat bread, potatoes, pasta, baked goods, candies, cookies, ice cream, sugar and alcohol. To most people, that is already asking too much, if not the impossible.
Just as in all fad diets, you may need great discipline to succeed long term. Discipline is always one of the key factors in the success of any diet plan. The problem is that you simply may not have that kind of discipline, or else you would not have your weight problem in the first place. If your weight starts to climb, you have to go back to previous phases, and start all over again. Can you overcome that kind of frustration? Are you a candidate for that kind of persistence and perseverance? Be realistic!
The Sugar Busters Diet
The Sugar Busters Diet is based on a best-selling book proposing elimination of foods that are most likely to be converted into sugar in your body.
The author claims that by avoiding sugar and food high in refined carbohydrates, you will increase your insulin sensitivity, lose weight, and be healthy, and that insulin resistance is the culprit of obesity.
How it works
The Sugar Busters Diet consists of an estimated 30 percent proteins, 40 percent fats, and 30 percent carbohydrates. You may eat red meat, poultry, fish, dairy products, olive oil, nuts, and selected vegetables and fruits. You can eat carbohydrates, such as sweet potatoes, whole grain bread, whole-wheat pasta, brown rice, only in small amount. You must avoid potatoes, carrots, and refined carbohydrates, such as white bread, pasta, and rice. Of course, eating refined sugar products is a definite taboo.
The pros
You may get to know more about diabetes. This knowledge may be beneficial to your overall health further down the road. You may gain health benefits, such as lowering cholesterol level and blood pressure. You may have significant weight loss if you diligently follow the diet.
The cons
The diet is too low in dietary fiber. You may falsely believe that sugar is the only culprit of your weight problem. It is not: if you have weight problem, you probably have a host of other health problems as well, not just the problem with sugar.
The Weight Watchers Diet
The Weight Watchers Diet, founded in the early 1960s by Jean Nidetch, is one of the most popular worldwide weight-loss fad diets with a proven forty-year record of accomplishment in helping dieters to lose weight through a global network of classes or weekly meetings involving over 25 million people.
Celebrities, such as the Duchess of York, may boost your confidence. You may always find a role model of success. Well, you can always have a role model when you look at any of those emaciated and undernourished fashion models as a carrot stick for a never-attainable “ideal” body weight and shape.
How it works
The Weight Watchers Diet is reliant on a food exchange system, in which you have a given set number of calories and food exchanges to follow for each meal and snack, as well as a set number of points for each day. You can add up your points as you like. Does the whole concept sound complicated, if not challenging, to you, especially if math is never your strong suit?
The pros
You can virtually eat any food you like - after all, it is all about calories. But aren't all other fad diets about calories too?
You get support worldwide. Sometimes it is comforting to know there are millions out there searching for the same miracle cure for their common health problems. It is pathetic, yet comforting, to know you are not alone.
The cons
You may lose weight only gradually and very slowly - no more than two pounds a day. If you are looking for a quick fix, you may be grossly disappointed.
You may not like to spend the rest of your life counting calories and points. It may not increase your weight, but it will certainly increase your math skill.
The Zone Diet
The Zone Diet, which has been a favorite diet in Hollywood, aims at controlling your weight through correct food intake. It is a low-calorie diet, dividing your calories into 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent proteins, and 30 percent fats. The Zone Diet was a creation of the U.S. biochemist, Barry Sears.
How it works
The Zone is a stage where you will supposedly reach if you eat a diet that contains precisely 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent proteins, and 30 percent fats. Sears claims that eating this way will not only produce optimum fat burning and weight loss, but also help you fight various types of disease, including cancer and heart attack. In addition, you will reach a balance between insulin (a hormone regulating the metabolism of carbohydrates and fats) and glycogen (sugar stored for later use as energy).
The Zone diet requires you to work out how many grams of protein you need a day from the tables, and then eat this much protein divided into “blocks” of seven grams each, nine grams of carbohydrate block, and two grams of fat block to stay in the Zone. Doesn't it sound overwhelming to you, especially if math was never your best subject in school?
The pros
You simply follow the correct portion sizes of your food intake. You may eat very-low-fat poultry, fish, dairy and vegetarian protein, as well as carbohydrates of mostly fruits and vegetables.
The cons
You may not eat potatoes, pasta, rice, white bread, corn, sugar, as well as high GI (Glycemic Index - indicating the blood glucose level of foods) fruits, such as carrots and bananas.
Essentially, you simply eat less - something you may not like in the end. Obviously, eating less may always provide a solution to overweight. The problem with most people is that they want to eat more, not less, and still have less weight. It is like eating your cake and having it too. Surely, you can have both, plus the bonus of a few extra pounds!
Other fad diets
In addition to the above, your choice of fad diets is infinite: Big Apple Diet, Cambridge Diet, Grapefruit Diet, Peanut Diet, just to mention a few more from a long list of fad diets that could go on almost indefinitely.
More fad diets will continue to emerge because these fad diets all fail in the end, not because these fad diets fail to deliver as promised, but because the individuals fail to adhere to them. They all want to lose the gain without the pain. They all want a qucik fix.
Switching fom one fad diet to another is one of the underlying causes of eating disorders. For more information on bing eating, bulimia, and other eating disorders, go to my website Overcoming Eating Disorders.
To control your weight for optimum health, you need to detoxify your body of the toxins accumulated over the years; you need to be physically healthy; and, most important of all, you need to eat less. If you fail to do these, all fad diets will fail you in the end. Your only option is to turn to yet another one of these fad diets that may come along.
12 Steps To A Complete Body Detox is a complete step-by-step program not only to eliminate toxins but also to break the vicious toxic circle in your body, thereby instrumental in creating the “art-and-science” of reversing aging effects. The package also comes with three other books: Acid and Alkaline Foods, 10 Easy, Low Allergy Gluten Free Recipes, and Health Success Journal.
After your detoxification, eat a balanced diet that gives your body a balanced acid and alkaline level (pH) for rejuvenation.
The Acid-Alkaline Diet provides excellent information on how to alkalize your diet. Many experts believe that a balance of acidity and alkalinity, known as your balanced pH level in your body, will make you disease-free.
If you are healthy, physically, mentally, and spiritually, your body will have acquired the body wisdom that will tell you what to eat and what not to eat. (Read my web page Healthy Eating.)
Forever Young - Anti-Aging Guide offers rejuvenation techniques to prevent and reverse aging through eating correctly. The package comes with “the garden diet”, “the orange juice diet," and the world’s first anti-aging diet followed by Mehusela and other ancient long-lived people, a diet for easier natural birth, and many others, including easy and healthy recipes to keep you forever young.
Any quick fix, especially in the form of fad diets or pharmaceuticals, is only adding insult to injury. Eat naturally, and you will live long. This is a simple phenomenon. Also, go organic whenever possible. Organic in 10 Steps provides everything you need to know about going organic.
Fad diets are no miracle cures for your health problems. Fad diets may not be right for you.
Return from Why Fad Diets May Not Be Right For You to Home Page.
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
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Get your FREE Quantum Mind Power to use your mind power to control your diet.
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