The American Heart Association recommends adopting healthy eating habits permanently, rather than impatiently pursuing crash diets in hopes of losing unwanted pounds in a few days through fad quick weight loss plans.
Many of these fad diets, such as the notorious and outright silly Cabbage Soup Diet, will undermine your health, cause physical discomfort (abdominal discomfort and flatulence (gas) ) and lead to the yo-yo effect of gaining weight soon after losing it. In other words the risks aren’t worth the rewards.
Quick-weight-loss diets generally put far too much emphasis on one particular food or type of food. They violate the first principle of good nutrition which is to eat a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods. If you are able to stay on such a diet for more than a few weeks, you may develop nutritional deficiencies, because no one type of food has all the nutrients a human being needs for good health. The Cabbage Soup Diet is an example. This so-called fat-burning soup is eaten mostly with fruits and vegetables. The diet supposedly helps heart patients lose 10 – 17 pounds in seven days before surgery. Even if the weight loss claim were true, all the damage due to a lack of many essential nutrients would far outweigh (pun intended) the benefits of losing the weight. There are no magic beans, or magic cabbages, or miracle foods when it comes to weight loss and good nutrition. That’s why you should eat moderate amounts from all the food groups rather than cutting out everything but a cabbage and water.
These crazy diets also violate a second important principle of good nutrition which is that eating should be enjoyable. These diets are so monotonous and boring that it’s almost impossible to stay on them for long periods. Imagine eating cabbage soup, nothing but cabbage soup, for even a few days much less for a whole week. By Wednesday you’d dread meal time, and by Friday you’d never again want to hear about a cabbage much less eat the soup. If you make it to Sunday you might die of a heart attack before you ever again tasted real food.
There are many other ways fad diets aren’t good diets. Many don’t encourage physical activity, for example, walking 30 minutes most or all days of the week. Physical activity helps maintain weight loss, while physical inactivity is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. When you hear a diet that mentions no need for exercise run for the hills, or at least run on a treadmill.
Quick weight loss sounds great. It is possible. Just don’t fall for tricks or gimmicks that might end up ruining your health.
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