by Joan Inong

Created on: August 24, 2009

If we could only use one word to describe fad diets, it would be "unhealthy." These diets are called "fads" because, like fads, they come and go and their influence or results are very fleeting. If you follow a fad diet, you will most likely lose weight fast, unhealthily, and then gain the weight back once you have stopped the fad diet.

All types of fads have been popular, and have flopped, over the past decade or so. These fads cover all parts of our daily lives, from fashion to diets. Fad diets were especially popular because the past two decades has seen the exponential increase of overweight and obese people. As a result, people looking for easy fix-its looked to fad diets to give them the solutions that they wanted, fast. Some of the fad diets of the past years that you may remember are: acai berry diet, cabbage soup diet, South Beach diet, "low carb" diets, etc.

You can usually tell if a diet is a fad diet by its regimen requirements. Most fad diets will deprive your body of essential vitamins, nutrients, and minerals, including foods that have these essentials. For instance, if you look at many "low carb diets," you will find that you cannot eat foods that have carbohydrates, regardless of whether or not the carbohydrates are good or bad. And, if you look at the water-based diets, you can see that you cannot eat solids; instead, you have to saturate your body with water-based products such as juice.

Because of these unbelievable requirements, people who follow fad diets will usually revert to their old selves once they get off of the diet. This is because the difference between eating normally and following these diets is huge. If you are only drinking juice to lose weight, and you lose a lot of weight (since you are not taking any solids in), and then you finally go back to a normal diet, you will gain all the weight back plus a little more.

Fad diets usually result in starving followers. When you starve your body of the solids that it needs, your body will not burn more fat. Instead, it will "eat" your muscles, resulting in a flabbier body and loose skin.

If you want to lose weight healthy and keep it off, you should not follow a fad diet. The creators of these diets feed on people's insecurities and desire to lose weight, and try to make as much money as they can while supporting an unhealthy product. For your health, please follow a diet developed between you and a nutritionist.

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