What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Fad Diets?

Do you follow a fad diet? Do you feel a fad diet can help you achieve your fitness goals? Constantly pressurized with the urge and need to stay fit, we get into dieting, sometimes not knowing what that can lead to.

What is fad diet? For those of you who don’t know what a fad diet is, it is nothing but a trendy and popular diet regime usually followed by celebs. Most of them include reducing food intake and losing weight quickly. However, just like any other trend, they are momentary.

So, are fad diets really effective? What are the advantages and disadvantages of a few of them? If you are looking for answers to these questions, then this post is the one you should be reading!

Fad Diets – A List:

Following is a list of some of the popular fad diets:

• Cabbage Soup Diet

• Master Cleanse

• Grapefruit Diet (1)

• 3 Day Diet

• 5 Bite Diet

• 17 Day Diet

• Acai Berry Diet

• Air Diet

• Apple Cider Vinegar Diet

• Atkins Diet

• Baby Food Diet

• Beverly Hills Diet

• Blood Type Diet

• Cotton Ball Diet

• Detox Diet

• HCG Diet

• Hollywood Diet

• Liquid Diet

• Low-Carb Diet

• Low-Fat Diet

• Negative Calorie Diet

• Paleo Diet

• Sacred Heart Diet

• Sleeping Beauty Diet

• South Beach Diet

• Tapeworm Diet

• Zone Diet

Most of these diets help you shed pounds quickly. However, they may have adverse effects. They cannot be considered as long term solutions for weight loss. They just provide quick-fix and temporary solutions and the consequences can be unhealthy.

Let’s look at three top fad diet plans in detail. All of them have disadvantages and advantages. They can help you lose weight, but they aren’t long term healthy solutions. The best way to keep fit is a balanced diet and exercise.

1. The Cabbage Soup Diet:

Cabbage soup diets usually include eating nothing but cabbage soup through the week, in addition to fruits and other vegetables. On the first day, you may eat cabbage soup and a tomato; the next day, you’ll eat cabbage soup and a turnip; on the third day you’ll be eating cabbage soup, tomato and turnip and so on.

Advantages:

• You can have unlimited amounts of cabbage soup and the specified foods (fruits and vegetables).

• The no-limits policy on cabbage soup ensures that you don’t feel too hungry and lose weight quickly. In some cases the weight loss is quite immediate and people have shed as much as 5 kgs in a week.

• Its antioxidant properties help remove toxins from your body.

• It’s cheap to furnish and quite easy to prepare.

Disadvantages:

• The cabbage soup diet can leave you fatigued and make you feel weaker than usual.

• In most cases, the weight loss has been found to be temporary.

• Cabbage soup can cause stomach cramps.

• Cabbage soup isn’t quite palatable and it may begin to taste dull after a couple of days.

2. The Master Cleanse:

Beyoncé Knowles made the master cleanse an instant hit. The diet regimen is aimed at ridding the body of excess fat and detoxifies it. The diet substitutes cayenne pepper, maple syrup and lemon flavored water with regular food. It is an especially laborious task, and sometimes the cleanse may continue for 40 days.

Advantages:

• It makes you feel better as you get rid of junk food, tobacco and alcohol from your diet.

• Its strong antioxidant properties help detoxify the body.

• The mix is quite palatable and economical to make.

• Although it can be incessantly long, The Master Cleanse is one of the shorter diets compared to other regimens with the average time being 10 days.

Disadvantages:

• It can be hard to follow, as no food is allowed.

• It needs physical and mental fortitude.

• It can induce rapid muscle mass depletion and reduce energy levels as well.

• Your body will take time to adjust to the normal food upon the completion of The Master Cleanse.

3. The Grapefruit Diet:

Often hailed as the Hollywood Diet, the grapefruit diet can last upto 12-18 days on an average. Grapefruits are slated to contain a fat-burning enzyme. Usually, you will eat ½ a grapefruit; alternatively, you can drink around 250 ml of grapefruit juice, along with specific meals. Meals will usually feature up to 5-7 glasses of water and protein.

Advantages:

• The grapefruit diet plan is quite easy to follow.

• It is a healthy food to consume, is low on calories, has close to zero fat and is crammed with Vitamin C.

• It helps lessen the risk of diabetes and hypertension.

Disadvantages:

• The calorie intake is reduced to 800. This limit is well below the daily nutrition needs and may cause fatigue.

• The rigid regime may cause stomach ache, dizziness or headaches due to food deficiency.

• The extra protein can lead to complications like Kidney stones (2).

Cautions:

Following are some cautions you have to exercise while using fad diets. You should ignore any weight loss product or diet plan that:

Claims to help shed more than 2 pounds a week. Remember that weight loss and weight gain are gradual processes and gaining or losing 2 pounds in a week seems highly improbable.

Makes unreal promises. You don’t have to remove fat and calories from your diet to lose weight. Healthier plans advise you to cut down on certain foodstuffs. Removing a nutrient from your diet can lead to other complications.

Includes ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos. Stay away from tricksters who use this technique. These products usually pay people money to right rave reviews and use unheard names of nutrition experts.

Restricts your diet to fruits and veggies and encourages you to refrain from a balanced diet (3).

Our Verdict:

The cabbage soup diet, the grapefruit diet and The Master Cleanse help reduce weight. However, all of them only provide temporary results. To really get fit, you need to balance your eating, exercise and pay close attention to what you put inside your mouth.

Most fad diets aren’t healthy, and neither do they provide long-term solutions. If you really want to shed weight, work with your physician and create a healthy diet chart and include some exercise in your regime. Remember that healthy weight loss is the only sure shot way to reducing weight and stay in shape.

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Courtesy : stylecraze