What Are Fad Diets?
Fad diets are diets that involve rapid weight loss, but are only to be followed for a short period of time. Another popular culture meaning for the term is a diet that becomes wildly popular for a period of a few months to a few years, and then fades into obscurity. The Hollywood diet, the Adkins diet, and Jenny Craig are just three examples.
Another name for these fad diets are food faddism. Any time one particular food suddenly becomes a superstar, that’s a food fad. These all have two things in common:
• The food, or some ingredient within it, is thought to have amazing powers.
• Other foods are removed from the diet because they have negative properties that should be avoided.
The Atkins diet displays the characteristics of one of these fad diets. Carbohydrates are avoided like the plague, because a carbohydrate low diet can do amazing things for your body. Low carbohydrates are extremely desirous in Atkins, because then the body enters a super fat burning condition. This diet had a number of short periods of extreme carbohydrate avoidance, followed by long periods of sustainable low carbohydrate eating. But Dr. Atkins did intend that people could eat this way for the rest of their lives.
As with many have diets, Atkins popularity was extreme and short-lived. It lasted a few years during which it seemed everyone you talked to was on the diet . Entertainment magazines were full of movie stars and music stars and sports stars who claimed amazing weight loss and fitness all due to the Atkins diet. Although still around today, the diet is far from as popular as it was at its height.
The Truth About Diets: There are many risks associated with fad diets. The Subway diet made popular in television commercials wasn’t exempt. It was based on the legend of Jared, a young man who’d lost nearly 250 pounds in only a year by eating Subway sandwiches, baked chips, and diet soda. Jared’s diet was severe — going down to 900 calories a day from over 10,000. Such an extreme level of caloric intake cuts and rapid weight loss isn’t a healthy fat loss. The diet did include many positive aspects such as exercise, like walking.
Be careful when taking on some of these fad diets. A long-term eating strategy combined with moderate exercise is usually the better bet.
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