Reasons Why We're Ditching The Fad Diet Lifestyle

Our ever-changing world is full of newly emerging trends and fads, many of which can be applied to our lifestyles, physical appearance, and diet. Through tools such as social media, we are exposed to a multitude of these trends, and one that seems to be growing in popularity is fad diets.

A fad diet is a lifestyle choice that becomes popular for a short time, similar to fads in fashion, which promotes unimaginative and often restrictive eating and makes unreasonable claims for rapid weight loss and health improvements. A recent poll has discovered that an average person will attempt 126 fad diets throughout their lifetime. We’re not keen to be a part of this statistic, so we’ve compiled a list of five reasons as to why we’re ditching the fad diet lifestyle. Keep reading on to find out more.

Fad Diets Are Only a Short-Term Fix to a Long-Term Problem

A lot of these fad diets such as the Ketogenic Diet, Intermittent Fasting, the South Beach Diet, or the Paleo Diet, work by severely restricting your calories or certain food groups. Some are so restrictive that you may start experiencing symptoms like headaches, dizziness, fatigue, body odour, and even anger spells. In the beginning, you might notice that you've shed a few pounds, but after a course of limited eating and suppressing all the delicious foods that you love, your willpower will soon disappear. This can lead to binging, which will then make you feel guilty because you've cheated on your diet.

Prolonged exposure to this kind of eating can do more damage than good, as your metabolism becomes slower, so food doesn't get burned into energy as quickly as it used to, and there is a risk of long-term health conditions such as high cholesterol and blood pressure. Due to this, you're more likely to gain weight faster than you did before the fad diet and run the risk of turning to another fad diet to lose the weight you've regained.

Fad Diets Can Actually Deprive You of Essential Nutrients

Diets that promote one-sided eating and restrict or ban certain food groups are dangerous because they prohibit you from consuming essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that your body needs to function. As a result of this, your body can become severely malnourished, leading to side effects such as dehydration, fatigue, and trouble sleeping, especially if you restrict your body from its regular caloric intake over a long period of time. Scientifically speaking, there is no way that a one-sided diet of nothing but one food group can supply your body with all of the nutrients it needs to function correctly. As we’ve highlighted, very low-calorie diets can lead to nutrient deficiency, and the whole point of losing weight is to get healthier!

Fad Diets Can Negatively Impact Your Relationship with Food

Sadly the majority of overweight people already have an unhealthy relationship with food, which fad diets can make worse. Typically food is viewed as a reward and used as a stimulant whenever the eater is stressed, depressed, etc., and subsequently, the withdrawal of food is viewed as punishment. Due to their restrictive nature, fad diets only encourage this punishment mentality, and it’s used to make you feel guilty because it leads you to believe that you will become healthier by punishing yourself.

Ditching the Diets for Long-Term, Healthy Results

The key to long-lasting, healthy weight loss is changing your relationship with food, which you can do by ditching the fad diets and by making a few adjustments to your current lifestyle and mindset. Starting with viewing weight loss as an ongoing life cycle instead of a “program” or “punishment” can help bring about long-term changes in daily eating and exercise habits. It is recommended to aim to lose around one to two pounds per week, as it’s proven that people who do so are more successful at keeping weight off long-term.

Once you’ve achieved your weight loss goal, rely on eating healthily by increasing your protein and fruits/vegetable portions and avoiding having too many snacks or items full of refined sugar. You can also achieve this through supplements or protein powders, such as the range of products from EatProtein. Browse their website for a selection of products tailored to keep you fit and healthy.

Alongside healthy eating, it’s recommended that you aim for around thirty minutes of physical activity a day to help you keep the weight off. Practicing these beneficial tactics will retrain your brain, and you will learn to eat to live rather than living to eat. So if you want to lose the weight and keep it off long-term, ditch the fad diets with us and start making fundamental, permanent changes to your mindset and lifestyle today.