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Who wouldn’t love the idea of quick and simple weight loss? It could be as simple as adding one supplement to your diet, doing a 7 day cleanse, or cutting out an entire food group altogether.
The truth is, many people struggle with weight loss or maintaining their weight long-term and fad diets don’t necessarily help. They promote 'simple' ways to lose weight, which are often too good to be true. Or if they do work, the diet is typically unsustainable to maintain long-term, usually resulting in weight gain when the diet is over. Fad diets keep many people in the realm of yoyo dieting, jumping from A to B to Z and back to A; when the truth is, fad dieting can be more harmful to your health long-term.
They promote everything other than sustainable and maintainable ways to lose weight through a healthy lifestyle.
I’m sure you’ve heard of some of these diets:
The keto diet (non-medical)
7-day juice cleanses
Water fasting
Eat right for your blood type
The Atkins diet
Low-fat diet
The grapefruit diet
Etc.
Any heavily restrictive diet will typically result in weight loss because it also heavily restricts the number of calories you're consuming in a day. Moreover, any substantial weight loss as a result of these fad diets (especially short-term diets) is not typically fat loss, but water loss. That’s right, your basically losing water weight. This explains why most people usually see weight gain when the diet is over: their body replenishes glycogen stores (water) and fat (based on how you come off the diet), as they cannot maintain the diet long-term. That is one of the issues with fad diets.
They don’t teach you how to build a healthy lifestyle.
They don’t teach you about the health benefits of exercise.
They don’t teach you how to set yourself up for success.
And that’s a problem.
Look, the fact of the matter is that about two-thirds of Canada's population is either overweight or obese, meaning that the dieting industry targets a vast majority of people. You cannot avoid advertisements from weight loss companies, regardless of where you go: from checkout aisles, to social media or from someone you know. But have you ever seen or heard of a weight loss company promoting the dangers of fad dieting overtime?
No, because they’re not usually in the business of long-term health.
All the while, fad dieting can lead to:
Metabolic adaptation - making weightloss harder overtime
Issues in hormone production
Changes in adipose tissue size
Insufficient vitamin and mineral intake due to limited food choices, therefore, discouraging balanced nutrition
Which can result in a myriad of other health problems
Dehydration
Headaches and nausea
Lack of energy
And more
Even if you wanted to follow one of these diets to kickstart your health and fitness journey, they don’t tell you what to do when the diet is over. They don’t tell you that you will likely see weight gain or how to limit it. Because there are ways to kickstart your weight loss journey by following a fad diet, and begin to build a healthy lifestyle afterward.
The truth of the matter is that healthy and sustainable weight loss takes time. It takes time to build a new foundation from the way that you were previously eating and moving or lack thereof. It takes time to educate yourself on a new way of living. It’s a matter of being patient with yourself and understanding that you're not going to be perfect at it. Lastly, it is also about appreciating yourself for wanting to better your health.
To conclude, if you don't know where to begin, seek assistance from a professional such as a dietitian, personal trainer, or your doctor who can help you get started and help you to maintain your results.
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