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Author:
Patricia Zelkovsky

Unfortunately most weight loss diets are actually fad diets. All to often diets that describe themselves as being new or revolutionary are actually diets that are twenty or thirty years old come back for a second or third wave of popularity. Good examples are the Zen diet, which is simply a revival of hippie macrobiotic eating theories from the mid 1960s, the Zone diet which is based on food combining principles that have been around since the turn of the 19th century and the Atkins diet which was initially pioneered in the 1970s and had a Gloria Swanson type comeback not too long ago.

The best way to identify a fad diet is to determine if it is based on any of the following principles:

It is based on the way Neanderthals eat
It is based on foods from the bible
It is based on your blood type
It is based on eating mostly protein and no carbs
It is based on eating mostly carbs and no protein
It is based on eating no fat
It is based on eating fatty foods
It recommends the eating of negative calorie foods
It recommends eating only one fruit such as grapefruit
It recommends drinking more than three cups of coffee a day
It claims that you can eat whatever you want

Perhaps the most popular of these diets are the High protein/low carb diet that are based on the idea that carbohydrates are bad, that many people are "allergic" to them or are insulin-resistant, and therefore gain weight when they eat them. This includes the South Beach Diet, the Zone Diet and the Atkins diet. These types of diets induce ketosis to accelerate weight loss. Ketosis is an abnormal body process that occurs during starvation due to lack of carbohydrate. Ketosis causes fatigue, constipation, nausea, and vomiting, none of which are part of a healthy lifestyle. Long-term side effects of ketosis are documented to include heart disease, bone loss, and kidney damage

The truth behind weight gain in this society is that people are eating more total calories and getting less physical activity. Your body simply doesn't distinguish between types of calories when it comes to weight gain or loss only the number of them.

Crash diets dehydrate you, low calorie diets put your body into starvation mode so you plateau so you can't lose one more pound and high protein diets stress your kidneys and clog your arteries.

The truth is that you do need protein and fat in the diet, both serve important metabolic and physiological roles in the body. Fad and crash diets, such as the ones described above are not only unhealthy but they are also cause rebound weight gain. Also most diets, even though diet gurus write them cause an initial weight loss but the ultimate result is that you gain all of the weight back the minute you go off the plan. If you don't gain it back within a couple of diets, you are likely to gain it all back plus a bit more within a year.

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| Article Keywords: Healthy Diets

A Quick Note From The Publisher... If you like the article above, you may be interested in the following article which is also related to Healthy Diets... Take Low Cholesterol Diets to Reduce Cholesterol Cholesterol is a fatty lipid, steroid and an alcohol found in the body tissues and blood plasma of vertebrates. It is the cardinal part of the outer membranes of human body cells and it circulates in the blood of humans. Cholesterol in the human body comes from two major sources - diet, and the liver, where it is produced internally. High cholesterol in the blood is considered to be unhealthy. The cholesterol levels in the bloodstream can influence the pathogenesis of certain conditions, such as the development of atherosclerotic plaque and coronary artery disease. It gets collected on the walls of arteries and interferes with the flow of blood. This buildup of cholesterol in the blood vessels may constrict the passages considerably and inhibit the flow of blood to and from the heart. Recent researches have revealed that the abundance of protein complexes, called lipoproteins are responsible for the cholesterol build-up in the blood vessels. Elevated levels of bad cholesterol (low density lipoprotein or LDL), are responsible for heart disease. Cholesterol in your diet: A high cholesterol diet is considered an unwholesome diet. Diets which are rich in animal fats, meat, poultry, fish, oils, egg yolks and dairy products, are a rich source of cholesterol. Organ meats, such as liver, are extremely rich in cholesterol. A diet high in cholesterol is fatal for the heart. Healthy diets are considered effective to lower cholesterol. A low cholesterol diet contains extremely low or no cholesterol at all. Diets of plant origin are the best low cholesterol diets. Fat is the major source of energy for the body, but excessive fat in the diet is dangerous. The excess fat raises blood cholesterol levels. It's bad for the...