In the 10-plus years I’ve been practicing, there has been one constant— watching fad diets come and watching them go, watching them come (again) and watching them go (again).
Why do you suppose that is? I have some thoughts:
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Everyone wants a “quick fix” when it comes to weight loss.
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Fad diets are generally easy to understand and simple to follow (at least for a few days).
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Fad diets make great tabloid headlines and even better book titles.
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Since fad diets don’t last, there’s always room for a new one.
The problem with fad diets is that they are … fads. Following any diet for a time, even with exaggerated zeal, does not lead to long-term weight loss. And, when it comes to following today’s fad diets, the results run from disappointing to dangerous. Let’s take a look at some of the latest weight-loss fads:
Ultra Low-Carbohydrate Diets
These diets, described in a host of recent best-selling books, share a common theory: Carbohydrate-rich foods, even starchy vegetables, wreak havoc on your physical and mental well-being. Eating these foods forces your body to make fat with abandon and leaves you moody, irritable and constantly hungry.
The cure depends on whose fad you’re following. Recommendations include avoiding carbohydrate-containing foods altogether by switching to protein-rich foods or fats, eating carbs at restricted times of the day or swearing off the most offending foods for life. The short-term health risks and negative side effects correspond with how extreme the fad diet is, ranging from marginal deficiencies of key vitamins and minerals to light-headedness and nausea. Since no one’s yet studied these diets in a credible, scientific way, the long-term effects are largely unknown.
Meal Replacement diets
According to some doctors, a diet plan of 1000 calories or lesser a day should not be followed for more than 12 weeks continuously. If a dieter is eating only 600 calories or lesser a day, he/she should be evaluated constantly by a healthcare/diet professional to avoid serious consequences, such as loss of muscle mass.
There is published evidence stating that these diets have possible side-effects, such as constipation, flatulence, nausea, bad breath, cold sensation, tiredness, and dizziness. It can also cause gall bladder stones.
Since the diet mostly involves meal replacements, it can eventually increase a dieter’s craving for food, leading to over eating and weight gain. Thus, the diet may not be very effective for long-lasting weight maintenance. It can also trigger eating disorders.
The extremely strict nature of these diet plans can be demoralising at some point, and a dieter may face difficulty maintaining the diet guidelines for a long time. People with a drastic weight loss plan are more susceptible to weigh gain afterward. I see this time and time again in my clinic. Clients will tell me that they tried this meal plan with shakes or meal replacements and they lost some weight quickly then piled it back on when they ate normally again.
Some of these weight loss foods sold by weight loss companies are nothing more than glorified sweet bars or high-calorie, sugar-based drinks. Savvy marketing adds to the confusion as consumers try to sort through all the heavily hyped super-nutrition health claims on the front of the package. Another disadvantage is that meal replacement products can be expensive to maintain.
“Restricted” or “Combining” Diets
The basic premise behind these popular diets is that eating specific foods – whether it’s cabbage soup, grapefruit juice or a combination of tuna with vanilla ice cream – in specific amounts at specific times of the day will lead to big weight loss. By severely restricting food intake, you lose weight. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the weight loss is mostly water, which returns as soon as you start eating normally again. And virtually everyone who follows a restricted diet will eventually return to eating normally, whether the diet says to or not. Most of the side effects of these nutritionally inadequate diets are short-term, such as gas and other gastrointestinal disturbances, and only last as long as the diet is followed. One long-term effect, especially if the diets are followed one after the other, may be increased risk for developing an eating disorder.
Diet Pills and Supplements
Due to changes in the laws that govern the sale of dietary supplements, the number of pills, potions and herbal concoctions making weight-loss claims has skyrocketed.
One-third of people trying to lose weight have tried potentially dangerous slimming pills bought online, a government survey has found.
One in three participants had taken substances bought through websites, according to the poll of 1,805 people released by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
The UK government medicines regulator said many of the websites are unregulated and the diet pills are often fake and contain ingredients that have been banned because of their harmful side-effects.
“Slimming tablets can seem like a quick-fix solution to weight problems, but some of them contain very dangerous ingredients,” said the senior MHRA policy manager Lynda Scammell. “It’s essential you know what you’re buying online and what the risks are. If you don’t, your weight could end up being the least of your worries.”
For the most part, the quality of the science behind these products is extremely weak, and the results have been inconsistent. In addition, side effects are largely unknown. What is known, however, is that combining dietary supplements with other pills (including over-the-counter medications) can be risky, and that at least one compound (known as ma huang, ephedrine and ephedra) has been linked with several deaths.
A Lifetime Plan
When it comes to weight loss, what your weight is at the end of a decade means a whole lot more than what it is at the end of a single day. In order to reap the many benefits of weight loss – from improved physical and mental health to having an entire wardrobe in a single size that you’re happy with – you need to take the weight off and keep it off for an extended period of time.
There is not a fad diet available that has shown it can make that happen. That’s why the Institute of Medicine’s expert panel has stated: “Because improvements in the quality of the diet and especially the amounts of food consumed are important to weight loss, as is modifying one’s lifestyle to incorporate reasonable physical activity, any weight-loss program must attend to these two components, providing the participant with necessary information and, ideally, skills.”
