Fad diets

A heart-healthy diet is different from a fad diet. Popular weight loss diets may help people lose weight rapidly, but they are difficult to maintain and can have harmful effects.

About fad diets

When it comes to losing weight, Americans want fast results. We’ve all heard that to lose weight, we need to eat less and exercise more. But those aren’t easy changes to make, and results come slowly. Most of us would rather be able to take a pill or make some simple change to our diet to lose extra pounds quickly.

This explains the popularity of fad diets, like those that claim you can lose weight by eating or not eating a specific food or food group, those that suggest food can change your body chemistry and those that blame weight problems on specific hormones. Despite warnings that these diets don’t work and may even be unsafe, many overweight Americans are desperate to find the easiest way to fast weight loss.

Do fad diets work?

Many people do lose weight on fad diets. However, experts point out that it’s usually because people are eating fewer calories while on the diets, not because of some “magic” ingredient or food combination. For example, people may lose weight on “The Zone” diet, but it’s not because they cut out carbohydrates. It’s because the diet in the book only has about 850 calories a day – an amount that would cause anyone to lose weight. A calorie is a calorie – and whether it comes from protein, carbohydrate or fat, you still have to eat fewer calories than you burn off to lose weight.

Most fad diets promise fast results. But when you lose weight rapidly, you lose mostly water and muscle, not fat. Because fad diets don’t teach you how to change your eating and activity habits, the weight comes right back as soon as you go off the diet. And diets that restrict what types of food you eat aren’t easy to stick to for very long.

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