Crazy Fad Diets: Are Any of These Worth Trying?

 

 

There are a lot of crazy fad diets out there. When you’re in your right mind, you can easily see how eating nothing but baby food or eating according to your blood time isn’t going to do much for your overall wellbeing. However, as the holiday season rolls on, and you’re bombarded with festive events and a hell of a lot of food, these crazy diets can seem a little more appealing. However, instead of putting your wellness through the mill, we’ve taken a look at four of the craziest diets out there, and what previous attempters have had to say about them.

 

1. The Baby Food Diet: This one has been around for a few years, but the baby food diet gained in popularity when it emerged that Hedi Slimane and Lady (goo-goo?) Gaga were rumoured fans. Reportedly endorsed by celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson, who kicked off a pureed-food craze a couple years ago after advising clients to replace two meals a day with jars of baby food plus a healthy dinner, Anderson has since denied endorsing the diet. If you stick to the sweet jars of baby food, the sheer amount of sugar is going to turn you into a total wreck. The diet has been known to help you lose as much as four pounds in five days, but previous attempters have also reported feeling miserable, hallucinating and having major cravings for something with a bit more texture.

 

2. The Blood Type Diet: Based on the 1997 book Eat Right 4 Your Type by Peter J. D’Adamo, ND, the blood type diet works off of the premise that your blood type determines the diet you need to lose weight and improve certain health conditions. These include asthma, heartburn, and headaches. This theory may help to explain why different weight loss plans work for different people. Another plus point of this diet is that it now comes with an app, making it convenient for you to keep track of the foods you personally can and cannot have. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a lottery as to whether or not you’re allowed to eat your favourite foods – type Os, for example, shouldn’t eat dairy while vegetarianism is recommended for type As – but it may be worth a try with the advice of a dietician or doctor.

 

3. The Clean Programme: This diet was introduced in 2009 by cardiologist Alejandro Junger, MD, and is favoured by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow. When you do the 21-day detox, you have two liquid meals and one solid lunch, avoiding common allergens and inflammatory foods. If the idea of ditching booze, coffee, cheese, gluten, and sugar for three weeks makes you think “What will I eat?!” the programme does have an expansive list of alternative, approved foods, such as quinoa and kale. If you can keep the diet up on a long-term basis, the clean programme does offer great weight loss results, as well as more energy and better sleep. However, any diet that requires only three weeks of effort won’t give you permanent results.

 

4. The French Woman Diet: Well, French women are well known for being gorgeous, looking young and staying slim, and so this is why pin-thin fashion maven Carine Roitfeld has declared she follows the “French woman diet.” This eating plan consists of small portions of rich foods (think steak, cheese, and tuna tartare) and mindful, sit-down meals (instead of snacking away in front of the TV). The diet also excludes packaged food and, weirdly enough, exercise. This diet – which allows pudding and alcohol – actually has some compelling support, as studies have shown that calcium and red wine can aid in weight loss. However, while mindful eating can stop you from gaining weight, you’ll need to pair it with some physical activity if you actually want to lose any.

 

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Categories: baby food, blood type, crazy fad, Fad Diets, food diet, french woman, type diet, Weight Loss, woman diet

Best Reasons NOT to Start Doing That New Fad Diet

Diets are all over the place. Whether they’re about improving your nutrition, losing weight or simply boosting your wellness and wellbeing, going on a diet can be really bad for your health. Fad diets are the worst for this – you’ll recognise a fad diet because everyone will be going on about it for a short period of time, and then they will find that it’s unsustainable and will move onto the next thing.

 

Fad diets tend to make all kinds of impossible claims. They seem to set themselves up as some kind of ‘miracle’ and tend to say that the dieter will lose a staggering amount of weight in a very short space of time. There is often some kind of celebrity spokesperson who illustrates how effective the detox/starvation routine can be. They are often pictured in a tiny bikini, showing off a very slender body is if to say that any of us can look like that in just six weeks, when the reality is far from being the case. This celebrity will talk about how much her life has improved since going on the diet, and there will never be any mention of the subsequent weight gain (or how all her pictures for the shoot have been airbrushed).

 

Something else to bear in mind – fad diets are boring. When you’re counting out every calorie or every gram of fat, life can become pretty dull – and unfortunately you can become pretty dull too. The only thing worse than a boring diet is a boring dieter, droning on about the calorie content of things or how they’ve cut out certain food groups or that they are having their life changed by some kind of unsustainable milkshake diet.

 

Unfortunately, it’s also the case that any weight loss through a fad diet is likely to be regained, with a few more extra pounds to keep it company!

Categories: diet, Diets, fad, fad diet, Fad Diets, kind, life, reasons, weight

3 Popular Fad Diets that Wellness Experts Have Tried

If you’ve tried a fad diet, and felt pretty stupid about failing or even making that decision in the first place, don’t worry – even those who know all about diet and wellbeing have been tempted by the promise of speedy weight loss results! Wellness expert Elizabeth Goodman Artis, Executive Editor of Muscle & Fitness Hers, admits, ‘I have experimented with most (though not all) of these popular weight-loss methods: from an all tuna plan in 7th (!) grade to the college era diet that allowed me to consume as many Snackwell cookies and Heinekens as my heart desired. Then there was the “caveman” diet I tried with my husband, a fan of the workout that espouses it. This left me craving white carbs so desperately I was ready to stuff a bagel into a baguette and call it a bagel/baguette sandwich.’

 

Goodman Artis continues, ‘And yes, many of these diets worked (not counting the beer and cookies)… at first. The reason, say experts, is that any time you drastically change your eating habits — in any way — you’re going to see results on the scale.’ The problem is that fad diets are simply note sustainable. Janet Brill, RD, PhD, a consultant in private practice and author of Cholesterol Down, asserts, ‘If you can’t envision sticking with a diet for the rest of your life, then it’s not a good eating plan.’ So we got Goodman Artis and Brill to look at some of the more popular, ridiculous diet plans of recent years, and explain why they’re more hype than help:

 

1. The Blood Type Diet: Goodman Artis explains, ‘Whether you’re A, B, A/B, or O, the theory goes that depending on your blood type, you should adhere to one of four possible eating plans: low carb/high protein, low-fat, vegetarian, or just an overall balanced diet. The reasoning is based on biochemistry and evolutionary theory.’ However, Brill points out that this has no scientific basis: ‘Blood type has to do with receptors on red blood cells and doesn’t dictate what you should or shouldn’t eat.’

 

2. Cut One Food Group: ‘Just cut out all carbs/sugar/fat (and eat as much as you want of everything else) and voila, the weight melts off,’ Goodman Artis details. ‘The problem…is that when you cut out one nutrient entirely, you’re likely to compensate with another. So if you eliminate all fat from your diet, there’s a good chance you’ll amp up the carbohydrates, and often the white processed variety. Or if you cut carbs, you may end up eating more fat. And while sugar doesn’t have much nutritional value, vowing to let nothing sweet pass your lips is just a recipe for a binge.’

 

3. Eat the Same Food 24/7: Goodman Artis recalls, ‘Seventh grade, as everyone knows, is a social minefield of cliques, mean girls, and pre-adolescent insecurity — and in an effort to lose the extra three pounds I was carrying, I decided to eat plain tuna fish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day until I could fit into a smaller pair of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans. That lasted through lunch. Sub in any singular food and you have a weight-loss method that’s ebbed and flowed in popularity over the years; for example, the all-fruit diet and the notorious cabbage soup diet. There are a myriad of reasons this is a wrong-headed approach to weight loss… but the main one is of course sustainability — forget keeping this up for life (imagine if, 31 years later, I was subsisting solely on canned tuna). Few can maintain this approach for longer than a day.’

Categories: artis, Blood, blood type, Blood Type Diet, cutting carbs, diet, Fad Diets, goodman, goodman artis, weight, Weight Loss

Are You Making These Diet And Exercise Mistakes?

At some point in our lives, each of us will plan a diet or exercise plan. It may seem like an easy thing to do but there are common mistakes that we all fall foul to at some stage or another. Overdoing the sugary and fatty foods and sitting down all day long without any exercise is not good for our bodies, so if you notice that your body and health is suffering as a result, making a change to your lifestyle is a great choice. Here are some tips to help that transition go a little more smoothly.

 

Avoid fad diets

There are millions of them around – the Atkins, 7-day Diet, Grapefruit Diet, 3-Day Diet, etc. – but none of these ways of losing weight will work, nor will they give your body the nutrients you need. The first step towards making a healthier diet plan is to give up on the fad diets and ensure that you’re getting the vitamins and minerals you need to be healthy. This means avoiding fatty foods, lowering your sugar intake, up your intake of fruit and vegetables, and ensure you’re getting enough protein and calcium. In the long term, your body will thank you for it.

 

Don’t skip meals

It may seem like the easy way to halve your calorie intake, but skipping meals actually has an adverse effect not just on your health but also on your weight loss. Your sugar levels will lower too much and you will have cravings for sugary foods; your body will also cling to the fat in your food, making it harder to shift. Eating regular, small meals throughout the day will keep your metabolism moving and will ensure that you maintain a good blood sugar level.

 

All diet and no exercise

Exercise isn’t all about losing fat and calories; it’s actually vital for our health and wellbeing. It tones muscle, improves our cardiovascular health and even benefits our mental health. There are a number of reasons why exercise is so great for shifting excess weight, but don’t assume it only needs to be done when you’re on a diet. And on that note, don’t stick to just cardio when you’re hitting the gym. If you’re trying to tone up and lose some weight, you need to combine weights and cardio to see results. An exercise plan that has a weight lifting routine in it will help you to tone up and will also increase your metabolism, helping you to burn calories even when you’ve stopped training. Women often worry that they’ll bulk up too much but this isn’t the case – you’ll just get leaner, more toned and stronger. Ease into a weightlifting routine by building up slowly – don’t be tempted to go for a heavy weight straight away.

 

Don’t start off with too much

If you’re completely new to exercise, don’t launch into a five day-a-week routine straight away. Your body needs time to adjust to this new lifestyle, so take it slow and begin with light exercises such as jogging or yoga to get your body used to exercise. You can then build up to more intense workouts when you’re used to it. You should check with your GP before embarking on any new diet or exercise programmes, to ensure that it’s safe for you to do so – they may also be able to offer advice on ways to ease your body into it so as not to shock your system or risk injury.

Categories: body, day diet, diet, exercise, Fad Diets, fatty foods, fitness, health, nbsp don, weight

Three Fad Diets That You Want to Try, But Don’t Have To

There are a lot of crazy fad diets out there, but how do you know if any of them work? Instead of putting your wellbeing through the mill, we’ve taken a look at a few of the craziest diets out there, and what you might expect if you give them a try.

 

1. The Paleo Diet: On this Stone Age–inspired regimen, you can forget about your modern favourites. No wheat, no dairy, no legumes and you can say goodbye to fruit juices. Instead, the Paleo diet features hunter-gatherer staples such as lamb, poultry, bison, and other lean game. While the diet asks you to ditch junk food – and that certainly is no bad thing – as of yet there are scant studies to prove the Paleo’s efficacy. There’s also an issue of convenience here, as you’re required to swap easy options for home-cooked meals, such as grass-fed meatloaf with almond meal, vegetables sautéed in coconut oil, and cocoa-covered nut balls with coconut shreds. This means less time in the gym, and more time preparing and eating foods that will send you into a sluggish food coma. While the Paleo Diet brings you life without processed foods, all that red meat isn’t great for your cholesterol. So maybe “back to basics” isn’t the best plan for your wellness.

 

2. The Karl Lagerfeld Diet: Based on the 2004, the Karl Lagerfeld Diet was devised for the Kaiser by Jean-Claude Houdret. This nutrition specialist helped the designer drop 90 pounds in the early aughts, based on a three-phase plan of a 900 calorie-a-day limit for two weeks; 1,200 a day for one week; and then maintenance at 1,600. Unfortunately, the phase one bland shakes and petite portions of vegetables (sautéed or raw) will leave your stomach and taste buds longing for more. You get more substantial options later on – including grilled chicken, avocado on toast, and Greek yogurt – but still the portion sizes are brutal. Sure, this can lead to fast weight loss and better skin, but there’s no way you can sustain the Karl Lagerfeld Diet long-term. Still, if it gets you trimming a little off your portion size in future, it can’t hurt to try.

 

3. The Pil-Sook Diet: This crazy diet fat comes from hit K-drama Dream High, which is a South Korean television series – I’m not making this up. In the show, pop-star wannabe Pil-sook wants to drop 65 pounds in 200 days, so her teacher paraphrases twentieth-century nutritionist Adelle Davis’ famous rule: ‘Eat breakfast like a queen, lunch like a commoner, dinner like a pauper.’ This diet also includes cutting out liquids after 7pm and taking part in daily 30-minute jump-roping sessions. At least the Adelle Davis rule has science on it’s side; according to an American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study, eating a high-protein breakfast reduces the release of ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates hunger. Initially, you might find those queen-sized breakfasts a bit of a waste if you have little appetite in the morning, but once you’ve had a few nights of starving on your Pauper meal-plan, you’ll wake up ravenous. In some ways, knowing a big breakfast is on its way makes it easier to have a little dinner, especially if you can eat pretty much what you want for breakfast, guilt-free. And, if skipping ropes aren’t really your thing, you can trade it in for some other form of cardio and still reap the weight loss benefits. So, even though it comes from South Korean TV, it seems as though the Pil-Sook Diet may be the most logical option on our list – now who saw that one coming?

Categories: adelle davis, Fad Diets, karl lagerfeld, Karl Lagerfeld Diet, lagerfeld diet, paleo diet, pil sook, Pil-Sook Diet, saut ed, south korean, vegetables saut

Crazy Fad Diets: Are Any of These Worth Trying?

There are a lot of crazy fad diets out there. When you’re in your right mind, you can easily see how eating nothing but baby food or eating according to your blood time isn’t going to do much for your overall wellbeing. However, as the holiday season rolls on, and you’re bombarded with festive events and a hell of a lot of food, these crazy diets can seem a little more appealing. However, instead of putting your wellness through the mill, we’ve taken a look at four of the craziest diets out there, and what previous attempters have had to say about them.

 

1. The Baby Food Diet: This one has been around for a few years, but the baby food diet gained in popularity when it emerged that Hedi Slimane and Lady (goo-goo?) Gaga were rumoured fans. Reportedly endorsed by celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson, who kicked off a pureed-food craze a couple years ago after advising clients to replace two meals a day with jars of baby food plus a healthy dinner, Anderson has since denied endorsing the diet. If you stick to the sweet jars of baby food, the sheer amount of sugar is going to turn you into a total wreck. The diet has been known to help you lose as much as four pounds in five days, but previous attempters have also reported feeling miserable, hallucinating and having major cravings for something with a bit more texture.

 

2. The Blood Type Diet: Based on the 1997 book Eat Right 4 Your Type by Peter J. D’Adamo, ND, the blood type diet works off of the premise that your blood type determines the diet you need to lose weight and improve certain health conditions. These include asthma, heartburn, and headaches. This theory may help to explain why different weight loss plans work for different people. Another plus point of this diet is that it now comes with an app, making it convenient for you to keep track of the foods you personally can and cannot have. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a lottery as to whether or not you’re allowed to eat your favourite foods – type Os, for example, shouldn’t eat dairy while vegetarianism is recommended for type As – but it may be worth a try with the advice of a dietician or doctor.

 

3. The Clean Programme: This diet was introduced in 2009 by cardiologist Alejandro Junger, MD, and is favoured by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow. When you do the 21-day detox, you have two liquid meals and one solid lunch, avoiding common allergens and inflammatory foods. If the idea of ditching booze, coffee, cheese, gluten, and sugar for three weeks makes you think “What will I eat?!” the programme does have an expansive list of alternative, approved foods, such as quinoa and kale. If you can keep the diet up on a long-term basis, the clean programme does offer great weight loss results, as well as more energy and better sleep. However, any diet that requires only three weeks of effort won’t give you permanent results.

 

4. The French Woman Diet: Well, French women are well known for being gorgeous, looking young and staying slim, and so this is why pin-thin fashion maven Carine Roitfeld has declared she follows the “French woman diet.” This eating plan consists of small portions of rich foods (think steak, cheese, and tuna tartare) and mindful, sit-down meals (instead of snacking away in front of the TV). The diet also excludes packaged food and, weirdly enough, exercise. This diet – which allows pudding and alcohol – actually has some compelling support, as studies have shown that calcium and red wine can aid in weight loss. However, while mindful eating can stop you from gaining weight, you’ll need to pair it with some physical activity if you actually want to lose any.

 

Categories: baby food, baby food diet, blood type, Blood Type Diet, Clean Programme, crazy fad, Fad Diets, food diet, french woman, type diet, Weight Loss, woman diet

Ten Easy Mistakes To Avoid When Trying To Lose Weight

Trying to lose weight is hard. No-one would deny that fact, and yet so many people want to lose weight, so why is it that so many simply find it impossible to do? Are the difficulties simply too much of a challenge for most people? Sometimes it seems that some people are destined to fail in their attempts at weight loss. Part of the problem is that it is easy to make mistakes during this difficult time and those mistakes often add up to a sum of real damage to your prospects of slimming down. So if you struggle in losing weight, it’s worth taking a look at our list of top ten mistakes to avoid if you’re trying to drop the pounds.

 

1. Fad diets

There are so many diets out there that it can be very hard to know which one is the right one for you. Part of the problem is that so many of them are so-called ‘fad’ diets, which are designed to sound like a good idea and produce fast results, but almost always are unsustainable in the long term. The problem is that losing weight is something that needs to take time for it to work forever. So avoid fad diets that promise too much and seem too good to be true.

 

2. Skipping meals or eating only once a day

Research has shown that simply trying to cut out meals from your diet is not an effective way to lose weight. Firstly, it is unsustainable, but secondly because it reduces the speed of your metabolism which is actually bad for you in the long term.

 

3. Dieting with no exercise

Many people think that you can lose weight without actually doing any exercise. This is incorrect and if you want to slim down it’s not enough to rely on your diet, you need to actually get active in order to drop the pounds.

 

4. Only using cardio to lose weight

Cardio exercise is important, but using it alongside weight lifting and other forms of exercising is the most effective way of getting rid of unwanted fat. Weight lifting even helps to improve your metabolism.

 

5. Trying too hard at the start

It is very important that you take it slow at the beginning and don’t try to force yourself to do too much too quickly. This is simply an unrealistic thing to attempt and you will end up failing because you will be putting too much pressure on yourself. Start with easy targets and progress upwards.

 

6. The wrong weights

If you’re weight lifting it is important to use the right level of weight. If you’re not lifting heavy enough weights you won’t see the benefits, while too much might make you not finish your sets or hurt yourself.

 

7. Avoid using momentum

Don’t swing parts of your body in order to give yourself momentum to perform the lift. At best, this is stopping you from getting the benefit from the exercise. At worst it can actually injure you.

 

8. Lack of research

If you want to lose weight it is important to do the proper research. This can include anything from reading books to going to the doctors.

 

9. Overeating

Overeating is a big problem if you’re exercising a lot, but it is something that you really need to avoid otherwise you’ll have real trouble.

 

10. Not enough water

Make sure that you drink plenty of water, it’s the best way to hydrate and it helps you feeling good. It can even help you feel more full up.

Categories: Fad Diets, Long term, Lose, Lose weight, Losing Weight, nbsp, pounds nbsp, weight, Weight Lifting, Weight Loss

The Nine Easy and Best Methods Of Weight Loss

How many people do you know who want to lose weight? If you’re like most people then the number will be very high – maybe you’re even one of them. It seems that almost everybody wants to drop a few pounds and yet despite the intense obsession with weight loss, no-one seems to have come across a fool-proof formula to do it just yet. That’s probably because we are looking for a one-size-fits-all solution that is both simple and sustainable, and that will work in both the short and long term. Clearly this is not possible, so that means we need to look at the realm of what is actually possible. So here are nine great ways to lose weight that are realistic and for everyone.

 

1. Decide if this is right for you

Too many people try to lose weight because they believe that being thinner will make them happy. It’s a much better idea to come to terms with the person that you are – if you want to change something about yourself you need to understand why.

 

2. Set a realistic target

There is literally no point in going into dieting with the idea that you’re going to lose two stone in a month – it’s just not possible. What’s worse is that if you set an unrealistic goal, you’ll see it as a very negative thing when you don’t achieve it. Set a target that is reasonable and achievable – this is the way forward for weight loss.

 

3. Eat a few small meals

Instead of being in the habit of having three large meals a day (and inevitably snacking in between your meals) try out having five or six small meals every day. Eating smaller meals helps you increase your metabolism and can also help you break away from the cycle of gorging on treats when you get really hungry.

 

4. Drink water and stay away from sugary drinks

Water is your friend. You should drink a lot of water every day and try to avoid sugar drinks as much as you can. Water can fill you up when you begin to feel a little hungry and it is also a completely healthy drink as it has no calorific content.

 

5. Get plenty of exercise

It’s no surprise to learn that exercise is very important if you want to lose weight. It doesn’t need to be anything major, as long as you’re getting active that will be very good for your body. Combine it with a good diet and you will be well on your way to sustainable weight loss.

 

6. Eat at home

It can be very tempting to eat out partly because it is simple and easy, but also because the food is very tasty. But of course it is packed with fats and sugar and other bad things for you, so it’s a good idea to eat at home and ensure you always do this.

 

7. Get plenty of sleep

Sleeping well is a very important aspect of losing weight. It’s well known that having an irregular sleeping pattern is a big problem if you’re trying to shed the pounds.

 

8. Stay away from fad diets

Fad diets are the scourge of the serious dieter. They are called fads for a reason and it’s a much better idea to follow tried and tested techniques such as eating healthily and getting plenty of exercise.

 

9. Give yourself a break and accept reality

Losing weight is hard and you can’t be too tough on yourself or it’ll just cause you more problems.

Categories: drink water, Fad Diets, Fat, Lose, Lose weight, Losing Weight, loss nbsp, nbsp, small meals, weight, Weight Loss

Fad Dieting as Seen by Professionals

Whether you follow them or not, fad diets are unmistakably on the rise around the world. Whilst longstanding weight loss companies like Weight Watchers are still turning an excellent profit, many of us looking to shed the pounds are turning to the diets that are so regularly splashed across the covers of magazines, endorsed by celebrities and promoted by friend-of-a-friend anecdotes. In fact, as the media and word-of-mouth is such an important factor in the spread of these diets, oftentimes the science behind them falls into insignificance.

With this in mind, online doctor and pharmacist Chemist Direct consulted dieting professionals from a range of disciplines to ascertain their views on the fad diets du jour and see if their popularity is justified.

 

Texan dietitian Megan Ware’s biggest gripe with fad diets is that they give dieters the impression that they will be able to maintain their weight loss:

“Fad diets only work in the short term, not for long term loss. Most people go back to their old eating habits once they get tired of dieting. Of course you are going to lose weight following that plan when you’re probably taking in less than 1000 calories per day.”

 

Registered Bariatric Dietitian Lori Rosenthal supported Megan’s viewpoint, stressing that stark changes to one’s diet are inevitably unsustainable in the long run:

 

“The best way to go about losing weight and keeping it off is to make one or two healthy changes at a time, only adding another once the first has become part of your routine and you enjoy it. If you feel restricted or deprived the change won’t last”.

 

But changing one’s routine, that is, one’s day to day behaviour is easily talked about but less easily put into action. Luckily, Lou Ryan, a behavioural therapist, was at hand to give some perspective to why dieting doesn’t work on a psychological level:

 

“Diets are not an effective long-term solution because they target the symptoms (i.e. unwanted eating behaviours) using willpower instead of dealing with the root cause of those unwanted behaviours (i.e. the subconscious thought process that creates food cravings).”

 

So, it would appear that the most important aspect of successful weight loss is targeting unwanted eating behaviours in a slow, methodical process, rather than simply depriving your body of nutrients and waiting for it to reduce in mass.

 

Whilst many dieticians and therapists will have their own plans for achieving this, I personally found Joseph Grenny, author of New York Times bestseller Change Anything, to have the most easily digestible approach. He proposes a five part plan for changing unwanted eating behaviours:

 

1. Change your impulses: Change the way you think about what you currently consider to be unpleasant behaviours. Create a Personal Motivation Statement on a 3×5 card that connects to your values, and read the card when you feel tempted to quit.

2. Learn the weight loss skills you lack: Losing weight requires skills, not just will. For example, when facing temptation our research shows people who learn a couple of simple skills are 50% better at resisting their urges.

3. Turn accomplices into friends: Don’t underestimate the power of your peers. For example, Harvard sociologist Nicholas Christakis discovered that obesity is partly infectious. Having obese friends increases your chances of following suit by a whopping 75%.

4. Get a coach or mentor: Coaches are crucial to behaviour change success. People with half a dozen active friends who play the role of coach or mentor are almost 40% more likely to succeed than those with less than a half dozen friends.

5. Reward small successes: Give yourself a small reward for reaching short-term goals. For example, if you give up fizzy dinks, set aside the £2 per day you save and do something meaningful when you reach £100.

 

The problem, however, is that the majority of dieters are still fixated on quick results for little or no effort. This may pay dividends if you just plan to lose weight for a particular special occasion like a holiday, but the path to true wellness unfortunately is going to take a lot more effort.

Categories: eating behaviours, Fad Dieting, Fad Diets, Long term, Lose weight, Losing Weight, Professionals, short term, unwanted eating, weight, Weight Loss

Carb Confusion: Is the Atkins Diet Damaging to Wellness?

The Atkins diet means cutting out carbs – but you didn’t need me to tell you that. Dr Robert Atkins’ diet plan is still the source of unending wellness controversy even 10 years after his death, as many still hold true the adage: carbs are the root of all rotundity, fighting the war against wellbeing. So does this mean that the Atkins diet truly works, or have we been holding onto a diet fad that needs to fade?

The NHS advice for healthy eating in the UK is that starchy foods, such as potatoes, cereals, pasta, rice and bread, should make up roughly one third of the food you eat. Paul Goldsmith, a 39-year-old teacher who has tried Atkins, said, ‘I try diets because I like to be told rules. Atkins was good because it allowed me to eat lots of nice foods. But it didn’t work in the long term. I’d end up ‘committing carbicide’ and eat lots of bagels or bread. For a man to say that bread goes straight to my hips, it’s probably an odd thing to say, but it’s true…I know I need to find something that I can do for the rest of my life.’

Nutritionist and dietician Nicole Berberian noted, ‘People tend to have a rapid response when it comes to weight loss, but Atkins is also known to have one of the greatest rebounds, so people pile the pounds on when they come off it.’ Many wellness experts argue that this dramatic change isn’t sustainable in the long-term, and so you carbo-load as soon as you get off Atkins, and all that hard work has been for nothing.

Sian Porter, a consultant dietician for the British Dietetic Association, commented, ‘Like all diets, when it comes to Atkins, there is some truth in the rumour – there is some underlying scientific evidence – but proof cutting out carbs is the best way to lose weight just isn’t there. She added that there’s no diet that is the be all and end all of weight loss, noting, ‘Diets are fads, but it’s about making permanent changes. Plus what you eat is only half the equation, the other half is physical activity.’

According to Paul Gately, professor of exercise and obesity at Leeds Metropolitan University, the Atkins diet and other low-carb diets have also led to misunderstandings among the general public. ‘One has to differentiate between simple and complex carbohydrates,’ he said. ‘Also, people tend to use carbs when they mean white rice, pasta and bread, but fruit and vegetables are healthy, and they are absolutely carbs, so sometimes the terminology isn’t appropriate in context.’

Carb Confusion: Is the Atkins Diet Damaging to Wellness?

Categories: Atkins, carbs, Fad Diets

The Truth About What Fad Diets Really Do To Your Health

The hardest thing about losing weight is the length of time that it takes. It can be so daunting to set out on a new diet, and to know that at the rate of one or two pounds per week (the healthy recommended amount of weight loss), it will take months or even years to reach your goal weight. People understandably want to see results quickly, especially when they are doing something as enormously difficult as changing their eating habits. This often leads people to try faddy diets, which promise that they will see results in a short space of time, but the problem is that, often, these types of diets are not good for long-term wellness.

One of the reasons that fad diets don’t work, long term, is that they are not sustainable. They often focus on eating one type of food in isolation, or cutting huge areas of food out of the diet altogether. In order to be sustainable, diets have to be something that you can maintain after the first flush of weight loss is over. As well as being unrealistic, however, these diets may also be damaging to your wellbeing – if not downright dangerous.

Fad diets are unhealthy for a number of reasons, and yet magazine editors continue to promote them.

One of the main reasons that they are unhappy is because they restrict certain food groups. This means that the diet is not balanced, and this can cause all kinds of nutrient deficiencies. Fad diets can also make you feel really run down and lacking in energy, which affects your ability to exercise as well as to enjoy your life.

The huge reductions in calorie intake which can be part of the diet can also slow down your metabolism, making it harder rather than easier to lose weight. When you do finally give up on the restrictive diet, as so often happens, the period of restrictive fasting can make you eat twice as much when the diet comes to an end, piling on more weight than you started with.

The Truth About What Fad Diets Really Do To Your Health

Categories: diet, Diets, fad, Fad Diets, Food, Long term, reasons, unhealthy, weight, Weight Loss