How to Recognize a Fad Diet?

fad diets:

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health. In 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Of these, over 650 million were obese.

How to lose weight in a healthy way (without falling for fad diets)?

Although any dietary or lifestyle change must be individualized, some pointers can be adopted by everyone who is looking to reduce weight. Keep an eye on how many calories are being consumed, the fad diets and increase physical activity. This may be one of the effective and practical weight-loss strategies that are not drastic and can be easily adopted.

How to identify fad diets?

fad diets are a quick fix sort of a diet. It does more harm than good. Most of us are on a weight loss diet or at least on a diet to maintain weight. We hear about so many diets and we are generally confused about which one to follow. Most of us are tempted to follow fad diets which promises a lot. But beware of fad diets which may affect your health adversely in the long run.

Here are a few pointers about how to recognize fad diets.

1. fad diets promise miracles and sounds too good to be true. A healthy weight loss is about 2 to 3 kgs in a month, that is about half a kg in a week. If a diet promises more than this that means some other nutrient is being compromised, that is our body may develop a deficiency in certain nutrients.
2. fad diets are based on individual experience rather than on scientific studies. One type of diet does not suit everyone. If the recommended diet is supposed to suit everyone then we have to definitely look into it carefully. A diet plan has to be personalized as each individual need is different.
3. fad diets are usually recommended for a short period. This should be done under a doctor’s supervision. A healthy weight loss diet is a diet which you can follow over a long period of time and which helps in losing weight gradually.
4. fad diets say exercise or increased physical activity is not necessary. This should definitely ring warning bells in your head. How can you lose weight without burning excess calories?
5. Recommends you to buy a certain product which will help you to burn fat or some such idea. One particular ingredient cannot help you lose weight without a proper diet plan. It may just be a marketing strategy of fad diets to help sell a product.
6. Asks you to remove any of the food groups completely such as grains, veggies, fruits or dairy. Or recommends you to consume only a food group or just a few foods. These fad diets may result in you developing nutrient deficiencies.
7. Always take the help of a qualified person to plan a diet for weight loss. An appropriate diet plan would reduce calories and at the same time makes sure that you get a sufficient amount of essential nutrients.

A weight-loss diet has to be a healthy diet not fad diets