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Dangers of Fad Dieting

The appeal of fad diets is that they promise quick and easy weight loss. The problem with most of these types of diets is that you're basically starving your body by not providing it with sufficient nutrients. You will lose weight while you're on the diet. Unfortunately, your body will go into natural survival mode as soon as you start to eat the way you did before the fad diet. It'll start storing food as fat reserves to help nourish your body during the next starvation faze.

Liquid Protein Diets

This type of diet is highly popular with those want to lose weight quickly. Basically you're drinking 500 to maybe 800 calories a day of a flavored drink marketed as containing enough nutrient supplements to keep your body healthy. The fact that these drinks are supposedly high in protein, which is what is meant to give you energy, lulls people into the sense that they're doing something good for their bodies. In reality, liquid protein drinks are nutritionally incomplete. Do a diet like this long enough and you could experience muscle breakdown. Some people experience heart irregularities, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea or constipation, or fatigue and muscle cramps.

Low Carb (Carbohydrate) Diets

Those who participate in this type of fad diet lose mostly water weight in the beginning which makes it look as though the diet is working. Unfortunately, a diet filled exclusively with fat and proteins lacks the essential minerals and vitamins the body needs to function properly. With such high protein fat, there's also the chance of increased blood cholesterol levels and ketosis. Carbohydrates are needed by the body to create enough energy. When there are not enough carbohydrates, ketones build up in the blood making it acidic. Symptoms of ketosis include bad breath, dehydration, fatigue and weakness, and nausea.

Appetite Suppressants (Diet Pills)

Diet pills are meant to control your desire to eat. They tend to only work for a short time. Sometimes when users discover the pill isn't doing the job it once did, they start to take more which reduces the appetite so much that the person doesn't want to eat at all and isn't getting the proper nutrients to fuel the body. Addiction to diet pills is common.

Fasting Diets

Fasting diets involve eating nothing or very little and drinking plenty of water for a certain period of time. Do it for too long or too often and not only will you lose fat, but also muscle as the body burns through its reserves to create enough energy to function. This type of diet also doesn't supply the body with the nutrients and minerals it needs.

Fasting changes your metabolism. It works initially but over time the body adapts to what it considers starvation. It starts to conserve energy which means weight loss slows drastically.