With each diet requiring restrictions and or omissions of specific foods and or certain food groups, it is quite impossible that they all can be truthful or else the key to living healthfully would be well—not eating.
So how do you go about deciphering between a healthy and a dangerous diet?
You want to be very selective and careful when choosing what you are or are not going to be putting into your body. Check out the below “warning signs” that indicate a certain diet may not be the healthiest, safest, most effective, or easiest to maintain long term.
- Promising quick results that are just too good to be true
- Giving dietary advice stemming only from non peer reviewed studies, poorly constructed studies, or even just a single study(1)
- Making shocking statements that reputable scientific organizations or credentialed specialists in the field disagree with(1)
- Making recommendations stemming from testimonies or anecdotes
- Entirely eliminating a single food group or food
- Promising results without the need for exercise
- Requiring intake of a specific supplement or product for weight loss
- Identifying ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods(1)
- Blaming a single component for an extremely complex problem such as obesity or chronic disease.
- Requiring certain foods to be eaten at certain times or paired together.
How should I be eating for my health and/or weight loss?
The key to long term weight loss and improved overall health is balance in what you eat and how much you burn through physical activity.
Adults need at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise each week (or only 75 minutes if you are doing vigorous intensity exercise). This can even be broken down into 10 minute increments. If you want to see even greater weight loss you should double the minutes of physical activity each week.
Also make sure your diet consists of a wide array of fruits, vegetables, low fat dairy, and whole grains and lean protein to reap the most health benefits, achieve sufficient vitamins and minerals, and to attain a slim trim body you can maintain for a lifetime.
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Fad diets photo credit: D'oh Boy (Mark Holloway) via photopincc
Works Cited:
1.) The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. "Nutrition Basics." Health-e-Weight for Women. Brigham and Women's Hospital - A Teaching Affiliate of Harvard Medical School, 20 Oct. 2011. Web. 23 May 2013. <http://www.brighamandwomens.org/Patients_Visitors/pcs/nutrition/services/healtheweightforwomen/eating/basics/fad_diets.aspx>.
