Fad diets or crash diets are designed to help you lose weight quickly by severely restricting your diet. They mostly rely on the elimination of a certain food group or emphasize on ‘miracle’ foods and, thus, play on your desire to lose weight. Despite the pressure, it is important to remember that these fad diets are not the answer to achieve health. In some cases, they can be downright dangerous.
When you feel the lure of the next fad diet, keep yourself on the right track by remembering how it is destroying your health:
Makes you dehydrated
The majority of the weight you drop when you lose weight too quickly tends to be water weight, which can lead to rapid dehydration.
Tires you quickly
Fad diets involve depriving yourself of calories. If you fast or eat less than what your body requires in order to lose weight too quickly, you’ll find yourself feeling fatigued for most of the day.
Messes with your metabolism
In addition to the nutritional deficiencies, fad diets also mess with your metabolism. When you eat too little food, you slow your metabolism, as a result, your body holds onto the few calories that you do eat. When you go off the diet, your body won’t use food as efficiently and you will actually put yourself in a position to gain more weight in the future.
Causes nutritional deficiencies
Crash diets and fasting are dangerous because they restrict you from consuming fats and carbs and prevent your body from getting the vitamins and minerals it needs. Depriving your body of essential nutrients can lead to malnutrition.
Makes you lose muscle
Most fad diets claim that you don’t have to exercise in order to lose weight. This combined with the fact that fad diets leave you malnourished means that the weight you’re losing might not be fat. If you lose muscle mass because of fad dieting, you’ll have a lot of trouble keeping weight off.
Causes digestive problems
It’s a subject no one wants to dwell on, but the truth is that losing weight too quickly can lead to severe diarrhoea, to be followed later by constipation.
Harms your emotional and physical health
The process of cycling through diets eventually leads to a negative body image, cravings and binges, and distrust in your innate ability to monitor food intake. These consequences increase the likelihood of developing an eating disorder, thus, taking a toll on your physical and mental health.