Is A Fast Weight Loss Diet A Healthy Choice?

If you are overweight, or just have a few pounds to drop, chances are you're been looking for a fast weight loss diet that can help you achieve your weight loss goal. Many of the more recent fad diets nowadays are low-carb diets which tell you to eat very few carbohydrate foods and promise results which are supposedly unattainable by conventional low-calorie and low-fat diets.

Some of these fast weight loss diets have phases where you lower your carb intake to the point where your body goes into a state called "ketosis" and switches from using carbs for energy to using fat. Such diets include the Atkins Diet and the South Beach Diet. It is an unnecessary extreme and will leave you lacking many important nutrients, not to mention being very difficult to stick to.

The problem with fast weight loss diets is that your body can only safely lose around two pounds of fat a week so when you lose more weight it's likely to be due to water loss or breakdown of muscle tissue, which is very unhealthy. Losing water will dehydrate your body and when you lose muscle, your body also starts to burn less calories.

In addition to the above, fast weight loss diets have many other side effects. For starters, when you suddenly change your diet and start eating less than normal this may trigger your body's starvation response. When this occurs your body wants to conserve its energy and doesn't want to let go of your body fat, which means your fat loss will slow down to a halt.

When you do lose weight on a fast weight loss diet it is almost inevitable that you will re-gain it when you complete your diet. This is not only because of your metabolism slowing down as you lose muscle but also because fast weight loss diets are extremely restrictive which can result in constant cravings and cause you to binge on junk food, falling right back into your old eating habits.

Some fast weight loss diet programs promise very optimistic results but charge you lots of money for the shakes and food bars which are a "necessary" part of the program. What's more, 95% of dieters put the weight they lose back on, and end up going back on a diet. How would you feel if you invested hundreds of dollars every month on a fast weight loss diet, and then put it all back on when you got off the diet?

The key to successfully and permanently losing the fat is not to drastically lower calories, nor to label carbs as evil and avoid them like the plague, as many fast weight loss diets advocate. Instead, you will get more effective results by changing your eating habits and eating smaller, but more frequent meals and cutting way back on processed, fatty and high-sugar foods.

Lasting changes do not come from fast weight loss diets, they come from improving your eating habits to avoid future fat gain, and then exercising regularly both with aerobic exercise to burn the fat off as well as with strength/resistance training to build muscle. In doing so, your metabolism will increase and your body will become more efficient at burning fat. Fast weight loss diets on the other hand cause your body to gain more fat in the long run and have a negative effect on your health.

1. Prev:Dr Atkins Diet Plan Prevents Gaining Extra Fat
2. Next:The Glycemic Index: Good Carb, Bad Carb