Don’t fall in the fad diet trap!

I’m sure you’ve heard of, or maybe even tried, the magic soup diet, or the grapefruit diet, both promising fast weight loss. However, you should be very careful of the miracle diets you hear about in the media, since they are not based on sound nutritional practice.

In fact, you’ll be surprised at the risk you put your body in, every time you go on a fad diet program. 

Besides being misleading, fad diets can lead to potentially serious health and emotional issues:

1. Dehydration and loss of muscles: Following a fad diet can lead to an imbalanced weight reduction, sometimes consisting of up to a 75% drop in muscles and water content, and only 25% from fat deposits.

2. Loss of some vitamins and minerals: Losing water makes your body lose vitamins and minerals that are necessary to maintain your energy and vitality.

3. Fatigue and dizziness: Being on a very low calorie diet can make you feel tired and dizzy, because of the low glucose levels in your blood. Your face will look thinner; you will look pale, but the fat in your hips or tummy will probably remain there.

4. Recurring feelings of depression: Deprivation weakens your will. After some time, you’ll feel more tempted to eat and once you go back to your old eating habits, you will definitely regain all the weight you lost. You then find yourself stuck in a vicious cycle that is very hard to break: dieting and losing weight, stopping the diet and regaining all the weight. This can cause mood swings that leave you depressed, and eventually lead to you giving up.

5. Other risks:- Stopping of menstruation, especially teenagers - Fertility problems in women- Low levels of iron in the blood (Anemia)- Bone loss and a high risk of developing osteoporosis in the future.

It’s nice to look like your favorite model, but you should make sure to do it the right way. And the best way to lose weight and maintain it is to follow a balanced diet moderately low in calories, along with regular physical activity. This way you’ll achieve slow but steady weight loss, while preserving your vitamin and mineral reserves, maintaining your energy, and feeling motivated and satisfied.

To follow a healthy sound eating plan that meets your nutritional needs, refer to a dietitian to get professional assistance.