
More and more of Americans are becoming conscious of what they put into their body, and as a result, how their bodies look and react to these food intake changes. Often, quick fad diets are the most popular way to shed 10-20 pounds, but are these really the changes the body wants or needs? The answer is usually no.
A few examples of popular fad diets include the master cleanser, where a person is limited to a concoction of water, lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper for 15 days. Sounds great, right? Well at the end of the day you can look forward to a warm glass of salt water, in order to trigger bowel movements. Lovely. Another popular diet is the cabbage soup diet-- an age old diet started in the 50's in which you can eat as much cabbage soup as you want, and slowly new foods are reintroduced depending on which day you are on the plan. The grapefruit diet is quite possibly the easiest to follow, by eating a grapefruit with every meal, especially protein, in order to burn as much fat as possible. The problem? You're only allotted 1,000 calories a day. It's recommended that adult females consume at least 1,200 calories a day, so this diet could get pretty messy fast. Watch out for those hunger pains. As described in the book, most of these diets make extraordinary claims, prompting "revolutionary studies" and promoting ambiguous results.
What do all of these diets have in common? Plain and simple; deprivation. Sure, you are allowing some nutrients into the body, but for the most part these "diets" should be looked at as cleanses and cleanses only. Too much of the nutrient depletion could cause your body to go into "melt-down" mode, where each calorie consumed is stored as fat, as opposed to muscle. This happens because of the calorie depletion; the body does not know when it will get it's next meal, it's basically starving itself, so all of the energy consumed is stored as fat, just in case. Do your body a favor and treat it right by following a life-long diet, rich with fruits, leafy green veggies, lean protein, low-fat dairy, and whole grains...and say goodbye to that cayenne pepper.
I've seen my mom try the HCG diet, the medifast diet along with a few others, and I think people need to realize that you can't lose weight that fast, at least in a healthy way. People often lose weight really fast, only to gain it all back, plus more. This is because our bodies are not made to lose weight like that, they strive to keep as much nutrition is us as possible. I agree with you that people mainly need to change their life-long diets, and not focus on the short term. People need to learn to be healthy.