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Author:
Ian Mason

What is a fad diet? Fad diets can be best described as a quick means of weight loss that are often only popular for a brief period of time. Fad diets can range from methodologies as deeply entrenched as Atkins and the Zone diet or as unsustainable as the cabbage soup diet or the Special K Challenge diet.

First of all, it needs to be understood that the weight loss claims made by advocates of these diets are not only fleeting but unhealthy as well. Diets like the cabbage soup diet and the grapefruit diet are going to, in the case of the cabbage soup diet, make you flatulent and, in both cases, have you only regain the weight immediately afterwards.

Fad diets will often overemphasize a single kind of food or type of food. For example, one diet that strikes me as being absurd is the Special K Challenge that advocates replacing two out of your three meals with any flavor of Special K cereal with 2/3 a cup of skim milk, thus typically resulting in a 5 pound weight loss after two weeks. The diet even advocates snacks consisting of Special K snack bars or fruits and vegetables. Astoundingly, there is virtually no decent source of protein included in this diet. While scanning the Special K website, the research used to make such rash assertions as being healthful are vague. They claim that Kellogg’s “nutrition team” worked closely with “leading universities” in order to arrive at their far fetched conclusion. To me, this means little more than a clever marketing ploy led by the Kellogg Corporation. Diets like these don’t take into account that people that are truly committed to weight loss are also working out several days a week, so, there would be a lack of calories needed to properly refuel the body. Basically, nutritional problems arise when a so-called “superfood” becomes the focal point of a diet.

Another diet that falls into the superfood category is the cabbage soup diet. This one along with some other unadorned diets have originated supposedly from hospitals. Diets such as the cabbage soup diet have been allegedly used by patients the week before undergoing heart surgery. By the end of the week, after having only eaten cabbage soup and fruits and vegetables , one is supposed to lose anywhere between 10-17 pounds. Unfortunately, one cannot maintain such a restricted diet for any prolonged period without feeling the ill effects of such a poor diet, such as vitamin deficiencies and the toxic repercussions of cannibalized muscle tissue.

Furthermore, this tremendous weight loss cannot be maintained once normal eating patterns are resumed since water constitutes a large percentage of the weight being lost and, to make matters worse, these diets provide no plan on how to gradually and safely reduce calories without compromising your own health. No matter how great the food is, none should be treated as a panacea. All diets need to be balanced as best as possible so that no ill effects arise.

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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... Think Thoroughly About Having Weight Loss Surgery If you are thinking about having weight loss surgery do so thoroughly. You may be anxious to get the surgery over and done with but it is a major change and your life will not be the same afterwards. This goes for it the weight loss surgery is successful in helping you lose weight and if it isn’t, because your body will be different inside, whether or not the outside changes. Of course this sounds a little negative. The surgery does help a great number of people to change their habits and lose a lot of weight. This can be beneficial in a number of ways, feeling better, more active, living longer, perhaps you’ll even notice a loss of certain medical problems that were exacerbated by being obese. Many have found that they don’t even make it through the pre-qualification process. There can be many reasons and by no means indicate that you can never lose the weight, in fact it often indicates that you have other alternatives to weight loss surgery that you can try to help you lose weight. Its possible that you’ve only been obese for a few years, which means that this isn’t a long term chronic problem and you should try healthy diets and exercise to see if the weight comes back off. You may have an untreated mental condition, such as depression or alcoholism. This can exacerbate your weight problems and by getting them treated you find that its easier to lose weight. Or you may still be under eighteen or over sixty-five. This is simply an age limit that doctors follow to help prevent unnecessary risks to the patients. Weight loss surgery is really seen as a last alternative to weight loss because it is a drastic step with serious implications if a complication occurs. But it is also a very effective means of weight loss with many success stories as a testiment to its...