Obesity is one of the main causes of health problems, so it is not surprising that almost every day a new diet appears that promises quick results without visible efforts on the part of losing weight.
Most of these diets are based on one scheme: we take a product or several products, endow them with "magic power" and create a plan designed to convince people that only this type of diet helps to lose weight. Such diets are difficult to follow, they have arbitrary rules and only give short-term weight loss, but the main thing: they are dangerous to health.
What is a Fud Diet?
Fad diet (fad diet) translates as "fancy diet." Such diets include any unbalanced and unhealthy diet that promises rapid weight loss.
Fad diets only allow you to eat certain foods and severely limit your calorie intake. They promise fast weight loss without any workout. Only a few foods are allowed, which makes any fad diet unbalanced, unhealthy, unhealthy, and sometimes deadly. When a person is on a fad diet, they usually do not burn fat, but lose water, so fad diets do not help long-term weight loss.
How to recognize a fud diet?
Fad diets are for people who are desperate to lose weight quickly or without any exercise. These diets are associated with extreme dietary restrictions and are difficult to follow in the long term.
Following these diets can lead to side effects that are dangerous to your health.
When you are faced with a description of a new diet for you, then ask the following questions:
- Does the diet promise quick results? Something like "minus 4 kilograms per week."
- Is the diet written or advertised by a celebrity?
- Does the diet promise you will lose weight without exercise?
- Does the diet involve using strange or dangerous methods?
- Does the diet suggest extreme food restrictions?
- Does the diet have a list of healthy and unhealthy foods?
- Does the diet emphasize buying a specific product from a company?
- Are the promises too good to be true?
If you answer yes to most of the questions, then this is a fud diet.
The 5 most life-threatening diets in the world
1. Lemon diet
This diet claims that you will lose up to 9 kg in 10 days and detoxify your body. For 10 days, you will have to say goodbye to solid food. There are several diet options, but the most popular is the following: 4 glasses of salt water every morning, 1 glass of herbal laxative tea in the evening, and 6 to 12 glasses of lemonade a day. By "lemonade" is meant a mixture of lemon or lime juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper and water. You are allowed to consume no more than 650 calories per day. After 10 days, a gradual return to solid foods begins through soups and fruit juices.
Dangers of the lemon diet
Fasting for ten days can be risky. The body does not receive the necessary nutrients and vitamins.Basically, you only use diuretics, so you are not losing fat, but water. Once you go back to solid food, you put on the weight back.
Side effects of the lemon diet include fatigue, nausea, dizziness, and dehydration. In addition, these low-calorie diets lead to muscle loss and decreased metabolism, which will make it harder for you to lose weight in the future. And there is not a single scientific fact confirming that the lemon diet rid the body of toxins.
2. Diet of the sleeping beauty
If you are asleep, you are not eating. This diet takes this fact to an extreme, encouraging people to use sedatives to sleep all day long.
The dangers of the sleeping beauty diet
In fact, the sleeping beauty diet is starvation accompanied by muscle wasting. Avoiding food for several days slows down your metabolism and causes dehydration. When you pump yourself up with sleeping pills, there is a risk that you will die in your sleep. Of course, you can wake up and find that you have lost 1-2 kilograms, but you also may not wake up at all.
3. The Cotton Diet, or the Cotton Ball Diet
Another insane and deadly fud diet. She gained popularity after Eddie Murphy's daughter, Bria Murphy, admitted that models eat cotton balls dipped in juice to stay skinny. Cotton balls are soaked in juice and eaten to curb your appetite.
Dangers of the cotton diet
Cotton is fabric, not food. What's more, most cotton balls are not made from cotton, but from bleached synthetic fibers that contain toxins. Swallowing cotton balls dramatically reduces calorie intake, and side effects include malnutrition and intestinal obstruction.
4. Nicotine diet
To boost sales, tobacco companies advertised their products to women as a way to lose weight back in the 1920s. The “diet” was simple: smoke as many cigarettes as possible and eat only when you feel hungry, which will not be often, since nicotine suppresses appetite. The diet then morphed into a "model diet," which consisted mainly of cigarettes and water.
The Dangers of Nicotine Diet
A study from the University of Lausanne found a relationship between smoking and weight gain:
- smoking increases the risk of metabolic syndrome and diabetes, which increases the risk of developing cardiovascular disease;
- smoking increases insulin resistance and leads to central obesity (belly fat).
Thus, a nicotine diet increases the risk of obesity. It negatively affects blood sugar levels, which leads to weight gain.
Smoking cigarettes causes breathing problems and lung cancer. About one in five deaths from heart disease are directly related to smoking.
Many people are afraid to quit smoking, because they know that a side effect of quitting cigarettes is weight gain: 75% of smokers gain extra pounds when they quit nicotine. However, studies have shown that a balanced diet and exercise can help prevent weight gain from smoking cessation.
5. Diet with tapeworms
The diet dates back to the early 1900s, but there are still people willing to try it. For example, Khloe Kardashian stated her desire to swallow a tapeworm. There is also an urban legend that Maria Callas used the tapeworm diet.
The essence of the diet: you swallow a tapeworm or a capsule of tapeworm eggs and infect your body with parasites. The worm feeds on the food you ingest, so you don't gain weight, and as the parasite grows in size and consumes more nutrients, you begin to lose weight rapidly. Having achieved the desired result, you go to the hospital, where with the help of antiparasitic drugs, you are relieved of the tapeworm.
Dangers of the tapeworm diet
The tapeworm absorbs not only calories but all nutrients, so severe wasting, anemia, debilitating stomach pain, and persistent nausea and diarrhea are just some of the common side effects.
This diet is deadly because tapeworms can lay eggs in their host and migrate into the bloodstream, infecting all body tissues and causing cysts in the liver, lungs, eyes, and spinal cord or brain.
And one more thing: when the parasite dies, you gain weight back.
Conclusion
Fad diets won't go away. New ones will be invented, old ones will be reworked, and people whose behavior is controlled by emotions and public opinion, and not by critical thinking, will sit on them. People are emotional and impatient, so there will always be a temptation to try a strange diet. However, simple changes in outlook will keep you from temptation or get you back on track.
- Understand that health is your greatest asset. This in itself will keep you away from fad diets.
- Don't think about losing weight. Focus on burning fat and increasing muscle mass. The point is not how many kilograms you have, but what your weight consists of. Once you realize this, you will unconsciously begin to steer clear of fud diets.
- Concentrate on the goal of becoming healthier and stronger. You can lose weight on a diet, but no diet will make you harder or stronger; exercise will.
There is no magic diet. The real miracle is a balanced diet combined with sports and the right mindset.