The verdict is still out on this heated debate question: Do fad diets work? Can you ditch the natural health supplements and diet pills for a 2-3 week crash
diet? The reason why this issue gets so much attention is because it’s really impossible for someone to say that fad diets don’t work—I mean, you start the diet, and the pounds melt off. That’s diet success, right?
So what’s the problem? What are the naysayers saying on the other side?
First of all, while everyone agrees that weight loss is weight loss, there is something to be said for the difference between healthy weight loss and unhealthy weight loss. Going on a fad diet like the cookie diet, the lemonade diet, or the cabbage soup diet may help you lose weight fast, but will it help you lose weight healthfully? Will you get all the vitamins and minerals and daily requirements for calcium and iron and protein on a daily basis? Will you starve? I hope you’d agree that starving is not a legitimate (i.e. healthy) way to lose weight! And the final question from the anti-fad diet dieters is: Will the weight that you lose so magically and effortlessly actually stay off?
Let’s go back over these questions and figure out if a fad diet is a good idea: Is it healthy? ‘ For this question, you’ll need to look at the specific diet, but for the most part, the answer is probably no. Crash diets usually don’t give you all the nutrients or calories or food groups that you need to survive. Will you starve? If you go on a crash diet long-term, you run the risk of doing serious damage to your body. You’ll see the effects in your skin, nails, and hair, as well as your internal organs, and even your brain. Will the weight that you lose stay off? No. When you go off a crash diet and start eating normally again, you’ll gain the weight back. So while it may seem like the final answer is NO, that you shouldn’t crash diet.
I’d like to suggest a few things you can do to make a crash diet work for you:
- Do it short term. If you have a dress you must fit into by next week, then a week of unhealthy eating won’t do any long-term damage—just make sure you’re not starving yourself.
- Take a multivitamin.
- Drink a lot of water.
- Don’t be upset when you gain the weight back.
- Take a diet pill like Herbal Phentermine to help you curb your appetite naturally.