Quick Weight Loss Is it Healthy
Crash weight loss plans and fad diets are an unwise alternative to permanent healthy eating habits, according to the American Heart Association.
What is a fad diet? It’s a well marketed diet with some miracle scheme to lose weight in an impossible manner, often by eating nothing but one food like a cabbage.
Quick-weight-loss diets generally put far too much emphasis on one particular food or type of food. They don’t include a variety of foods or a healthy balance, a violation of the first principle of good nutrition, eat a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods. Because no one food has all the nutrients needed for good health, these diets can result in a lot of health problems.
One such diet is the Cabbage Soup Diet. The deception of this fad diet is that cabbage soup is some sort of fat dissolving potion. The diet supposedly helps heart patients lose 10 to17 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 the benefits of losing the weight. Pixies, elves and fairies, or even cabbages, can’t create mystical weight loss programs. Planning in eating all the main food groups is the best way to go.
These crazy diets also break a second important principle of good nutrition which is that eating should be enjoyable.. It’s impossible to stay on these diets for a long time because they’re so bland. Consider a week on the Cabbage Soup Diet. By mid week crawling bugs would look good. They’d cart you off in a straight jacket by week’s end.
Boredom isn’t the only reason fad diets aren’t good ones. Many don’t mention physical activity, for example, walking 30 minutes most or all days of the week. While a lifestyle of little physical activity can lead to heart problems, exercise is a major element of maintaining your correct weight. When a diet mentions no need for a workout, run the other way.
Quick weight loss sounds great. It is realistic. Just don’t fall for tricks or gimmicks that might end up destroying your health.