Four types of diet plans that are a waste of time
Four types of diet plans that are a waste of time.
Like your weight, fad diets come and go. How many diets have you tried over the years? A new diet plan emerges that promises great results and you jump on board. It’s hard work and the weight comes off, leaving you jumping for joy. But as soon as you return to your regular diet, the pounds pile back on with a vengeance. It’s a frustrating cycle of “success” and failure. You’re tired of wasting your time on diets that don’t work, are too expensive, negatively affect your health, or don’t provide lasting results.
As you start a new year and desire a new you, there are diets out there that can help you reach your goals, but not all of them. So be sure to keep far, far away from these diet plans.
Failure 1: Detox Diets
They promise to flush toxins from your system while boosting your metabolism, restoring your energy, recharging your health, and aiding in weight loss. Don’t believe the hype. Detox diets are typically low in calories and nutrients, leaving you feeling weak, dizzy, and nauseated. The longer you stay on a detox diet, the more dangerous it becomes.
Besides, contrary to what detox fans will tell you, cleanses and detoxes are pointless endeavors. Your kidneys, liver, and immune system are already doing a fine job of ridding yourbody of toxins. If they weren’t, you’d know it! Examples of popular detox diets include the Master Cleanse, colon or liver cleanses, juice cleanses, or green smoothie cleanse.
Failure 2: Overly Restrictive Diets
A second kind of diet to avoid are those that require you to only eat a few types of food or only certain food groups. The grapefruit diet, Paleo diet, cabbage soup diet, blood type diet, baby food diet, and some low-carb diets all fall into this category. Remember—your body was designed to function best with nutrients from each of the different food groups. You may experience initial weight loss with these specific diets, but once you begin to eat a normal diet and feel like a normal human being, the weight will return.
Failure 3: Super Low-Calorie Diets
Diets that restrict calorie consumption below healthy levels should also be avoided. A day or two of fasting or skipping a meal here or there isn’t necessarily dangerous, but drastically reducing your calorie intake in order to lose weight isn’t a wise idea. On a diet like the Hollywood diet, Skinny diet, or Total Solution diet, you’re only allowed to eat between 800 and 1,500 calories a day. Meals are replaced with soup, specific energy bars, drinks, or the same kind of food over and over.
This may make you feel like you’re doing something drastic and you may hope for drastic results, but depriving your body of food wreaks havoc on your metabolism. When youreturn to a normal diet, your metabolism is even slower than it was before, making it harder to burn unwanted calories. To make things worse, the weight you lose on low-calorie diets is a combination of fat, muscle, and fluid, but the weight you gain back will be primarily fat. While on very low-calorie diets you’ll also feel ill and fatigued. In rare cases, your doctor may recommend a very low-calorie diet to treat weight-related health conditions, but in other situations, it is not recommended.
Failure 4: Miracle Food Diets
If a diet plan sounds too good to be true, it likely is. Maybe a certain food, ingredient, supplement, or food combination is advertised as the “secret” key to weight loss. Unfortunately there’s no magic potion for losing weight. Things like supplements, apple cider vinegar, green tea, or bitter orange don’t bring about extraordinary weight loss. So watch out for diet plans that require you to consume lots of the stuff or forces you to purchase expensive supplements or potions that promise weight loss. Also, steer clear of diets that promise great results but go against conventional science.
