What defines a fad diet? How do you recognize that a diet is a fad? Is there anything legitimate about fad diets? This is the first entry in a series that will discuss fad diets, including the specifics about fad diets like the Blood Type Diet, the Cabbage Soup Diet and the Caveman Diet.
Yes, before you ask, those are all real names of real diets that are advertised to provide dieters with fast, measurable results. Unfortunately, there are a lot of diets out there that promise a lot of results, but fail to deliver for any number of reasons. Those diets that do deliver are not necessarily the healthiest of diets.
The things you need to understand about all diets, including fad diets, is that you will gain weight from calories. Whether calories come from fat, protein or carbohydrates, they are the source of whether we gain or lose weight. Diets that restrict carbohydrates induce a state called ketosis. Ketosis burns fat and muscle tissue for energy when carbohydrates are lacking.
Despite all claims to the contrary, ketosis is not a pleasant state for your body. You can experience fatigue, vomiting and nausea among other symptoms when you are in a state of ketosis.
So how do you recognize a fad diet? There are a few key components to any diet that are warning notes about the fad status.
Fad diets will:
- Exclude or emphasize a particular food or food group.
- Blame hormones for weight gain without medical evidence of hormone issues (like a verifiable Thyroid problem)
- Offer to accelerate or burn weight right off
- Say they can change body chemistry to produce weight loss
As much as we would all wish it so – there is no magic cure for weight loss. There are success stories with every fad, but that does not make them nutritionally sound or physically good for your overall well-being. Despite the promises that fad diets make, they aren’t recommended for long-term, lifestyle supporting weight loss.