Thursday, March 19, 2009

Quick Weight Loss Is it Healthy

By Cathy M

The American Heart Association recommends adopting healthy eating habits permanently, rather than impatiently pursuing quick diets in hopes of losing unwanted pounds in a few days through fad quick weight loss plans.

What is a fad diet? It's a well marketed diet with some miracle scheme to lose weight in an impossible manner, often by eating nothing but one food like a cabbage.

Quick-weight-loss diets generally put far too much emphasis on one particular food or type of food. They don't include a variety of foods or a healthy balance, a violation of the first principle of good nutrition, eat a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods. Because no one food has all the nutrients needed for good health, these diets can result in a lot of health problems.

The Cabbage Soup Diet is an example. The myth of this diet is that cabbage soup is some sort of fat dissolving potion. People supposedly lost 10-17 pounds in only a week, eating primarily cabbage soup. Even if the weight loss claim were true, all the damage due to a lack of a host of important nutrients would far outweigh (pun intended) the benefits of losing the weight. Pixies, elves and fairies, or even cabbages, can't create magical weight loss. Moderation and consuming all the major food groups is the best bet.

The second principle of good nutrition is that eating should be enjoyable. You think eating only cabbages every day is enjoyable?. It's impossible to stay on these diets for a long time because they're so monotonous. Consider a week on the Cabbage Soup Diet. By mid week crawling bugs would look good. They'd cart you off in a straight jacket by week's end.

There are many other ways fad diets aren't good diets. Most don't include physical activity, for example, walking 30 minutes most or all days of the week. Physical activity helps maintain weight loss, while physical inactivity is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. When a diet mentions no need for a workout, run the other way.

Quick weight loss is possible. Just don't fall for tricks or gimmicks that might end up destroying your health. - 15439

About the Author: