Crash weight loss plans and fad diets are an unreasonable choice to permanent healthy eating habits, according to the American Heart Association.
What is a fad diet? It’s a well marketed diet with some miracle scheme to lose weight in an unacceptable manner, often by eating nothing but one food like a cabbage.
One food or one type of food is generally overemphasized with fad Quick Weight Loss diets. They violate the first principle of good nourishment which is to eat a balanced diet including a variety of foods. Because no one food has all the nutrients required for good health, these diets can result in a quite a lot of health problems. The Cabbage Soup Diet is one example. The myth of this diet is that cabbage soup is some kind of weight loss potion. People supposedly lost 10-17 pounds in only a week, eating mainly cabbage soup. Even if the weight loss claim were true, all the harm due to a lack of many essential nutrients would far outweigh (pun intended) the benefits of losing the weight. There are no magic beans, or magical cabbages, or miracle foods when it comes to weight loss and good nutrition. That’s why you should eat moderate amounts from each of the food groups rather than cutting out everything but a cabbage and water.
The second rationale of good nutrition is that eating should be enjoyable. You think eating only cabbages every day is enjoyable?. It’s impossible to stay on these diets for a long time because they’re so boring. Consider a week on the Cabbage Soup Diet. By mid week crawling bugs would look good. They’d carry you away in a straight jacket by week’s end.
There are many other ways fad diets aren’t good diets. Most don’t talk about exercise, such as aerobics for 30 minutes a day every day. While a life-style of little physical activity can lead to heart problems, exercise is a major element of maintaining proper weight. When you hear a diet that mentions no need for physical exercise run for the hills, or at least run on a treadmill.
Quick Weight Loss sounds great. It is realistic. But if a program sounds too good to be true, it is.
