A lot of individuals who are seeking to lose weight today are so ever willing to try the latest diet on the pages of their popular magazines, TV talk shows, and even those on display on their local bookshop shelves. Most of the promises made by these diets have become somewhat very appealing and compelling to try by a lot of people. These diets have over the years come and gone and are what have come to be referred to as "fad diets."
In general, the term "fad diet" is used to describe any dieting plan or program that claims to have discovered the "secret" or "method" to create successful, irreversible, and long-term weight loss through mostly use of the diet program alone.
These diets become quickly popular because they: (a) make promises of quick weight loss results; (b) make a lot of unsubstantiated claims about how dieters will feel and look through the use of their diet program; and (c) are relatively easy to implement.
Most fad diets are based on macro-nutrient manipulations coupled with the use of low-calorie intake to achieve their weight loss effects. There is also the fact that most fad diets somehow almost always fail to promote sound weight loss ideas and always want to make dieters rely solely on their diet program in order to successfully be able to lose weight and manage it.
Another thing about fad diets is that they do not provide real long-term weight loss benefits owing to the fact that most of them cannot be used successfully for more than a period of about two (2) weeks or the maximum of a month. This is more so why most of these diets are simply regarded as "quick fixes".
Fad diets come in various forms which often makes them quite unrecognizable to a lot of dieters. They have over the years been promoted through (a) the consumption of specific foods (e.g. the Grapefruit Diet); (b) eating specific food combinations (e.g. the Zone Diet); and (c) eating at specific time periods (e.g. the Rotation Diet).
Also, while they have been promoted by others through the elimination of certain food (e.g. the Carbohydrate Addicts Diets), others have recommended their diets to be based on an individual's blood type (e.g. Eat Right for Your Type). Furthermore, there are others today which are being promoted by celebrities and even named after well-known places associated with fame and thinness.
But then, does it mean that fad diets do not in any way whatsoever help dieters lose weight? Or are there not some among the lot of them that can at least prove effective in achieving real weight loss?
In general, weight loss diets - including fad diets - work by ensuring the reduction of calorie intake which results in a calorie deficit that then produces the weight loss effect. Therefore, people lose weight when their calorie intake becomes less than their energy expenditure.
Conversely, fad diets to a large degree do help dieters lose weight, howbeit not in the right way and definitely not for the long-term. This is because most fad diets tend to focus more on achieving quick scale weight loss than the actual loss of unwanted body fat.
Usually most of these diets limit the amount of certain key nutrients needed to ensure that the body functions at its optimum capacity. A lot of these diets are known to reduce calorie intake to somewhat below 1,000 per day as against the recommended minimum of 1,200 calories per day.
When a fad diet is used (with most focusing on reducing or avoiding fats in general), the nutrient deprivation soon causes the body to react by initially losing water from body cells. Water has weight and therefore this will invariably reflect on the bathroom scale. This is what is first noticed about most fad diets and why most people initially assume that they are in for the real thing.
However, with continued use, the reduced calorie intake forces the body to start depleting its muscle mass for use as energy to meet its energy requirement. It is only when the glycogen from its muscle mass has been significantly depleted before the body actually turns to burning of its stored fat reserves for energy.
Nonetheless, after about three to four weeks, the dieter starts getting weaker, and unable to perform his or her usual activities. This is usually occasioned by the fact that unlike glucose and glycogen, its takes the body more time and energy to burn fat for energy. When most dieters get to this point of feeling constantly weak, they usually break the diet because they are generally unsustainable.
Once the dieter stops the fad diet and starts eating normally again, the process of restructuring the depleted body cells and muscle mass caused by the nutrient deprivation of the fad diet often makes a lot of dieters return to their former weight and some to even add-on more weight than what they had before the use of the fad diet program.
It can therefore be said that the initial weight loss achieved when using a fad diet is not due to the actual loss of unwanted body fat but rather to the loss of water from body cells and a depletion of muscle mass. Fad diets are therefore more scale based weight loss than actual body fat loss diet programs.
Fad diets can therefore be considered to be unhealthy for long-term weight loss. The best way to achieve real long-term weight loss success remains the adoption of a lifestyle of healthy eating habits and regular exercise. The optimal diet for weight loss should therefore while reducing overall caloric intake, promote regular physical activity.
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