The newest fad diet is all about quick weight loss, high-fat and indulgent meals, cutting out all carbs, and this one secret…
It won’t make you healthy.
It’s a fad diet and chances are, long term, it’s not sustainable, balanced, or healthy.
Fad diets are all about what specific type of food or macronutrient you are eliminating or extremely limiting from your diet. While one of these fad diets may be well and good for the very few percent of people who have true, diagnosed allergies, food sensitivities, or a disease where a specific diet can help the body heal, for the majority of us it creates a host of issues physically and mentally. Demonizing any specific food or nutrient can lead to mental health, body image, and food issues. Take, for example, the Keto diet. This fad diet is famous for making claims that if you follow it, you’ll have glowing health and lose lots of weight. All the while it demonizes and excludes grains and beans as foods you should be eating(among many other things) claiming they wreak havoc and cause significant inflammation to your entire body. When in actuality, these foods can fuel your body with carbohydrates (your body’s preferred source of energy) while providing you with vitamins, minerals, and high-quality, heart-healthy fiber. What they fail to mention about the Keto fad diet, is that ketosis(the state your body is in when you eat a very low carbohydrate diet for a specific amount of time) is not a long-term or sustainable solution for losing weight, and it puts your body into a very acidic state. Again, not a long-term or sustainable option for creating a healthy lifestyle.
So… what diet really works?
The answer: no diet really works. “Diets” are quick-fixes that, in the long run, do more damage than good. Healthy, balanced eating is what gets the job done. You hate to hear it again and again, but there is no magic pill, no blessed potions, and no special witches brew that will transform you into what you hold in your mind’s eye as “ideal”. What will work is consistently eating whole, nutritious foods that fuel your body, brain, and activities you enjoy in the right portions throughout the day along with staying physically active. That’s it. In a way, it’s really quite simple. In other ways, you can make it quite complicated… so instead of searching for the next fad diet, why not learn how to create balanced meals?
Instead of rushing to the next boutique gym and focusing only on how many calories your apple watch says you burned(which, by the way, is very inaccurate), why not focus on all the benefits moving your body has in addition to weight loss?
Here are some great resources you can use to help implement a healthy, balanced lifetsyle that will have you feeling energized and strong in no time:
• Habit Facts: What You Need To Know