The issues with fad diets and how they cause future problems

Let’s first start off with making something clear… The word “diet”. What initially comes to mind when you think of the word “diet”? For most people (myself included years ago) it was weight loss. For many years people have associated “diet” with weight loss. When in reality - we’re all on a diet. What you eat in a day constitutes your diet.

Now here’s where things get confusing: I Google’d the word “diet” and got a load of bull sh*t weight loss stories by famous people, how to lose weight and the best “diets” to follow for weight loss. The first actual link was “How to diet” by the NHS, which again, is quite misleading. As the majority of people associate “diet” with weight loss, it should really be titled “How to eat for weight loss” or something along those lines. The article starts with fad/novelty diets and how dangerous they can be (which I’ll talk about a little later on) and the associated health risks they have with following them. It then finally gets into “6 ways to kickstart your healthy weight loss plan”. The most important words to take note of in that title? “Weight loss”. I.e, it’s not a diet, per se, that people are looking for, it’s guidance to achieve weight loss via their diet. Here’s the link if you’d like to check it out: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-weight/how-to-diet/

Weight loss and YOUR diet go hand-in-hand. You don’t need to be a scientist to work that out. But you don’t need to be on A diet to achieve weight loss. The difference being is that YOUR diet will - more than likely - need to be calorie-restricted and healthier food choices, whereas A diet is specifically for people who either can’t tolerate or are allergic to certain types/groups of food, such as lactose, dairy, gluten, fish or nuts etc. or choose to follow a certain diet for religious or personal reasons such as vegetarianism, veganism or pescetarian for example (I will cover these in more detail later, too). But don’t be mislead into thinking these diets are any better for you from a health perspective. Especially if the individual cannot tolerate or has an allergy to a specific food/s. They are more than likely going to have some kind of deficiency (in vitamins, minerals and nutrients). These diets aren’t for a period of time either, they’re intended to be permanent, so, people who choose to follow these diets, make sure that it’s for the right reasons and not for weight loss as nutrient deficiencies can have a negative impact on your health and wellbeing in the future.

Now, fad diets (as the word “fad” suggests) are short-lived, popular diets that can be harmful, and in some cases - quite frankly - nonsense. They’re a “quick fix” way to lose weight that’s not sustainable, not recommended and usually resulting in the individual gaining back their weight and then some when they stop their chosen diet… The weight gain is the least of their worries at this point so let’s go through some of the popular diets you may have heard of (or even tried) and their potential health risks:

The Juice Plus, Intermittent Fasting, 5:2, Low-Fat, Weight-Watchers/Slimming World, Teatox/Bootea, Cambridge, Special K, Forever C9, Boombod, Skinny Coffee and Herbalife Diets

The list above is an example of some of the extreme crash diets that have been designed for quick and rapid “weight loss”. All but 3 (low-fat, fasting and 5:2) out of the list are marketed products where you replace (usually) 2 out of your 3 main meals per day with their product. These usually come in the form of shakes, cereals, juice drinks or taking a shot of their weight-loss drink 30 minutes before a meal. These products only aid your weight loss as you’ve drastically cut your calories by replacing your meals with these very low-calorie drinks/foods. The issue with these?

1. They’re overpriced

2. They’re highly unrealistic and not sustainable

3. They’re not enjoyable

4. They lead you into having an unhealthy relationship with food as the person has been deprived of it

5. Once you stop using the product, you’ll easily put the weight back on as you resume your usual calorie diet

6. Some people have reported that they’ve gained all their weight and then some after finishing the diet

7. Limited diet

Some diets have you follow their rather obscure diet plan by counting “points” or “sins” (Weight-Watchers and Slimming World). Although these two diets do have you eat proper, nutritious, home-cooked meals, they have simply confused/tricked the “dieter” into calorie counting (by calling them points and sins) and basically being a more responsible person by choosing their food more wisely combined with a healthy portion for their size. They both also sell their own microwave meals, although convenient and time-friendly, can have unforgiving consequences on your body. Not only are microwave meals low in nutrition and high in additives, colouring's, salt and sugar, chemicals and preservatives giving them a shelf life of - in some cases - years, but they also “could have serious consequences on your health, according to experts. Carcinogenic toxins are leached out of plastic containers used to heat ready meals in the microwave, the Daily Mail reported. There are also concerns about the constant exposure to radiation emitted from microwaves can affect concentration, energy levels and sleep patterns. The extra toxins put extra pressure on your digestive system and on your immune system, too. They can have a detrimental effect on fertility, hormone balance, blood pressure, cardiovascular health, mood and libido also,” Rick Hay, anti-ageing food and fitness nutritionist, told the Daily Mail” (https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/ready-meals-microwave-food-effect-body-and-brain-a7169751.html)

If this isn’t enough reason to not follow it, they also allow the “dieters” to have “free foods” or “sin-free foods” where they are allowed to have as much of it as they like and still be able to lose weight. This is simply not correct. For example, two of the listed “free foods” on Slimming World are bananas and potatoes. Albeit healthier choices of food, if your personal calorie allowance is, say 2000 per day, if you really wanted to, you could eat nothing but these two foods all day and consume over 2000 calories and you would end up gaining weight. The logic behind this theory is that the free foods are not highly palatable and the dieter would not choose to eat a lot of it. The actual fact that they are allowed to do this if they wanted to is absolutely ridiculous. The average person following these diets are often left confused as to how the diets work, so as soon as they stop, they gain the weight again, making the person feel as though they have to commit to this diet forever (and never really understand nutrition, which is key when achieving health and weight loss) - can you really imagine being on one of these diets for the rest of your life? I know I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to.

Intermittent fasting and the 5:2 Diet

Fasting diets are intended to reduce your overall intake of calories throughout 24 hours. The most common fasting diet is intermittent. Usually, the individual would fast for 16 hours (including their sleep time) and eat over the remaining 8 hours. Although this method has been reported to be very successful in certain individuals, others fail miserably, and this is because many people struggle with willpower and discipline - they’ll fast to the point where they’re “starving” and then binge eat. Others suffer from “brain fog” where they’ll feel low in energy, lethargic, cannot concentrate, can’t sleep properly, have low mood and make poor decisions in the absence of food/calories. Another big problem is that their performance in activities will be affected, making them seem weaker or slower than usual as they have less fuel to burn in extended periods of time without energy. When a person becomes overly hungry, they’ll make poor food choices and will eat anything just to satisfy their hunger. People will usually opt for high carb, sugary snacks as a quick fix with zero to very little nutrition and often grab zero-calorie caffeinated drinks to stop them feeling the effects of the diet. This then intensifies their problems with sleep deprivation and low mood and poor performance.

The 5:2 Diet has the same intention as intermittent fasting - to eat less over a certain amount of time (7 days in this case). Again, very successful in some individuals if they have good willpower and discipline. The difference with this diet is that the individual will eat normally over 5 days and eat between 500-600kcal on the other two days. There must be one normal day of eating between the two fasting days. The same side-effects of this diet are the same as the last. I think that this diet may do more physiological damage, too, as the individual may view their normal eating days as days where they can “get away with eating more junk” than on a fasting day and will more than likely end up actually gaining weight via this thought process. They may then adopt an unhealthy relationship with food where they find they cannot miss an opportunity to eat what they really want, given the chance.

The Low-Fat Diet

One thing to clear up when it comes to fat is that it’s not all bad for you. In fact, we need a large amount of healthy AND a small number of bad fats in our diet that are essential for the normal growth and production of the human body. These are called Essential Fatty Acids (EFA’s) because they play such a major role in how healthy we are. All fats (good fats (EFA’s) and bad fats (Saturated and Trans Saturated Fats)) have previously been demonised by the media and swayed us away from eating any fats at all, suggesting us to go on low-fat diets leading us to believe that all fats are unhealthy for us. Of course, if you eat lots of foods where the bad fats are moderate or high then that’s irresponsible and you’re bound to run into trouble. As you may (or may not) know, bad fats such as trans fats clog your arteries and raise your bad cholesterol, increasing your chances of heart disease and strokes. On the contrary, good fats produce good cholesterol which “sweep” away your bad cholesterol - which is another vital reason to include good fats into your diet. Good fats also keep you fuller for longer without leaving you with cravings for sweet food. They are also great at lowering your blood sugar level when swapping some of your carbohydrate rich foods for fats. This is why eating more good fats is recommended for people with diabetes (but please consult with your doctor beforehand). Be aware that fat per gram is 9 calories, whereas protein and carbs per gram comes in at 4 calories, so it’ll seem like you’re not eating as much food.

The Low-Carb Diet: Carbs (carbohydrates) are foods such as bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, starches and sugars etc. and are a typical staple food choice of many Brits diets. A huge amount of people base their meals around carbs such as toast, jacket potatoes, pasta dishes, cereal, fruit, beans and lentils, crisps, breakfast bars and sandwiches etc. and that’s ok! Now imagine limiting your carb intake to a quarter of what you’d usually eat in one day for a longer amount of time. Say 4 weeks? Longer? What would you eat? How would you sustain it? And what foods are you now not able to enjoy? Sure, you’d lose weight. Of course you would. You’re eating roughly 50% (or more!) less food than you usually would per day. That’s great, isn’t it…? Or is it? If you’re the type of person who doesn’t enjoy carbs? Then yes. But for, probably, around 90% of people who do enjoy carbs? No, it isn’t.

Low(er) (rather than low) carb diets are only really recommended for diabetics as their blood sugar levels are more controlled.

Complex carbohydrates (potatoes, rice, pasta, bread etc) help play a key role in the human body. They give our bodies adequate amount of energy/fuel to perform sports, daily tasks and activities and help maintain a good mood and healthy cognitive thoughts. Low amounts or the absence of complex carbs has the complete opposite effect, leaving us feeling lethargic, unenthusiastic, low motivation, low mood and poor focus and decision making and lack of energy to perform simple daily tasks. You can develop headaches, constipation, cramps, bad breath and worst of all, it can lead you to gain strong cravings towards simple carbohydrates (sugary treats, cakes, biscuits, candy, soda etc) resulting in you gaining an unhealthy relationship with food once you finish the diet.

The Keto (Ketogenic) and the Atkins Diet are very similar in which they both concentrate on an almost zero to an extremely low carb intake for a certain period of time. The Keto diet was actually developed back in the 1920s to treat children with epilepsy and has since been used as a method for weight loss as they were completely carbohydrate deprived, thus, losing weight as they weren’t eating as much food overall. After around 2 weeks of eating no carbs whatsoever, the body enters a state of ketosis resulting in burning fat (not body fat, fat from food) as fuel rather than glucose (carbs), whereas the Atkins diet was solely developed for weight loss in 1972 and consists of four phases of carb restrictions, the first of which restrict the individual to an alarming amount of just 20-25g per day (one very small potato is around 30g carbs) until you’re about 15lbs away from your target body weight, then you enter phase 2.

Both of these diets can be extremely difficult to adhere to as previously mentioned, the average person's diet consists mostly of carbs. The Keto diet relies on individuals eating foods high in fats only, whereas the Atkins diet is a mixture of protein and fats. This theory sounds fun to most people, but it’s a different story in reality. Expect to eat a very limited diet if you were to follow the Keto diet. A high-fat, low-carb diet would have you eat foods such as full-fat dairy, cream, cheese, nuts and seeds, avocados, oils, eggs, leafy green vegetables, shirataki noodles, high-fat meats and oily fish, olives, unsweetened beverages (hot & cold), cocoa powder and 95% dark chocolate. The Atkins diet is very similar in foods that are acceptable to eat on the Keto diet except you are able to eat all types of non-processed lean and fattier meats such as poultry, beef, tuna and white fish, pork and lamb as you are allowed protein on the Atkins diet.

Both of these diets are not advisable for diabetics as it can alter insulin and blood sugar levels to an unsafe level.

They’re both very unrealistic for the average person as it’s extremely hard to adhere to. There’s not enough variety making it quite boring and also can deplete an individual's nutrient profile leading to further complications in life. It also restricts what you can eat if you have a meal out to socialise and you can only drink straight spirits (in small amounts). Sounds great until you realise you haven’t got any/many carbs in your system to soak up the alcohol, leaving you with a stinking hangover or being very ill.

But here’s the thing: According to the NHS, “Starchy foods should make up just over a third of the food we eat in a day.” This is a fairly high amount to recommend to individuals (almost 50% of their total calorie intake coming from carbs per day). Research shows that it’s actually closer to two-thirds (around 60-70%). Needless to say - this is too many.

Why? Carbohydrates work and digest completely different in the body compared to fats and proteins. Carbs will usually leave you feeling bloated, lethargic and often leave you feeling hungry more quickly than fats and proteins. This may be one major factor contributing to the approaching epidemic in diabetes and an obesity epidemic worldwide. Other than providing us with faster-digesting energy (readily available calories to be used within sports for example), they only really provide us with fibre, therefore, the average individual (lightly active) will only require around 30% of their calories per day from carbs to be able to perform their daily routine and tasks with adequate energy and ease.

Fats and proteins will keep you fuller for longer without feeling bloated and lethargic, they are also more beneficial for the health of our bodies in order to produce healthy muscle/soft tissue and a very healthy gut. A healthy gut will promote a stable cognitive state, believe it or not. Now, by all means, I am not advocating a low-carb diet (as previously mentioned), but I do recommend individuals consuming around 30% of their total daily calories coming from carbs and around 35% from quality sources of protein and 35% from fats rich in omega 3, 6 & 9 and of course, lots of fibrous vegetables such as leafy greens. If you’re not sure how to figure this out, I recommend downloading MyFitnessPal which is a free app you can download to get a better understanding of what your food provides for you.

The Gluten-Free, Lactose/Dairy-Free, Vegetarian, Vegan and Pescetarian Diets

This is the only time you should hear a person say they’re “on a diet”. Individuals on these diets either have a medical reason (as their body cannot process a specific type of food - gluten/lactose/dairy/fish/nuts etc.) - or they choose to be on a certain diet for personal reasons or religion (vegetarian/vegan/pescetarian etc.). As previously mentioned, despite either having to be on one of these diets for medical or personal reasons, actually can not be very healthy. For example, if an individual happens to be unfortunate enough to be allergic to gluten and lactose and is religious so they’re vegetarian as well, he/she would be lacking in essential nutrients and can have lots of deficiencies, having severe side effects such as brittle bones, muscle/tissue loss and even as bad as visual impairments for example. There are supplements that these people can take but it’s never as good as what it is in its most natural/unprocessed form, plus, they would have to take a lot of them to equal to the amount that the natural form can provide. For example, a cup (around 240ml) of skimmed milk would provide 250mg of calcium, whereas 1 cup of soy milk would only provide 60mg of calcium, that’s just over a 6th of the amount of calcium in the same quantity of milk, which in turn, is 6 times as many calories, and that’s the best you’ll get. Now, if you’re a vegetarian/vegan, you’d have to source your protein from somewhere else other than meat, too. A popular choice is soy beans/tofu. 100g would only provide you with 8g protein, whereas 100g chicken breast provides 31g of protein. Also, whereas there is an abundance of meats that provide us with vitamin B12 (a nutrient that helps keep the body’s nerve and blood cells healthy and helps make DNA. It also helps prevent a type of anemia called megaloblastic anemia that makes people tired and weak) there are no sources of vitamin B12 for vegans and very few for vegetarians (unless fortified (manufacturer added) to processed foods which can also be very unhealthy for you).

The Paleo Diet

The aim of the paleo diet is to return to a way of eating that's more like what early humans ate around 2.5 million years ago to 10,000 years ago. The diet's reasoning is that the human body is genetically mismatched to the modern diet that emerged with farming practices. Farming changed what people ate and established dairy, grains and legumes as additional staples in the human diet. This relatively late and rapid change in diet, according to the hypothesis, outpaced the body's ability to adapt. This mismatch is believed to be a contributing factor to the prevalence of obesity, diabetes and heart disease today. There’s one massive problem with this. Upto 2.5 million years ago… we were a different species entirely. Humans were called Homininis - which means early human. They had a completely different anatomy to the modern human, so much so that they ate everything raw. I know that the diet doesn’t mean to go off and eat raw meat, it’s referring to the fact that nothing was processed. But this doesn’t mean you should have to revert to this type of diet to obtain optimal nutrition and health. We live in a completely different era with much more nutritious food than what they did 2.5 million years ago. The problem is now that we have evolved so much and the world is at its cleverest where we now have technology, wifi and smartphones, it’s made things so much easier to be lazy which leads to inactivity and obesity . Food production and farming is easier now and actually help prevent food from spoilage and increase food safety. Some foods are fortified to add nutrients like fiber, calcium or vitamin D. Some are simply prepped for convenience (washed or chopped) or packaged to last longer. Most foods are processed – changed, prepared or packaged – in some way before we eat them like packaged salads, tinned peas and tuna, milk, ready chopped and frozen veg. So, the real problem we face is not to revert back to an era where they had no processed foods whatsoever because the fact is, is that we no longer live in it. We live in the here and now and dealing with the fact that there is bad food out there that we know we should moderate. It’s not about eliminating the modern day junk food we have but, frankly, it’s rather about being a more responsible and sensible person when it comes to food and moderating the amount of junk you eat whilst maintaining a healthy and balanced diet with responsibility and discipline. We’ll always have junk food surrounding us and we need to accept that and do your best to make the right food choices. We currently have access to some of the world's healthiest foods because of technology, farming protocols and importation (see image below) (where the paleo era would obviously not have had those foods), but we equally have a lot of badly processed/convenience food as well because of technology. It makes food easier to be mass produced, use low quality food and preservatives which can be stored and kept for years (which is not a good thing).

The Detox/Purify/Cleanse Diet

Detox diets are generally short-term dietary interventions designed to eliminate toxins from your body. A typical detox diet involves a period of fasting, followed by a strict diet of fruit, vegetables, fruit juices, and water. Sometimes a detox also includes herbs, teas, supplements, and colon cleanses or in extreme cases, enemas. People also like to detox as a means of weight loss at the same time as detoxifying their body. This usually (in my experience) is what happens when the individual has had a poor diet for an extended amount of time and wishes to get healthy through detoxing but often doesn’t last as it’s such an extreme diet. Often, people will report this diet as successful as they will drink large amounts of high-fibre juice/veg drinks with more water than they’re used to having and they will almost instantly need to “off-load” their bowels as their digestive system isn’t used to having much fibre previously, this is where the rapid weight loss comes from and will return as they resume their usual diet. Rather than changing their diet, individuals opt to have a certain period of time where they do these crash diets, lose water weight and return to their usual diet and body weight. What most people don’t realise though as that the human body is equipped with its own detoxifier - the liver. It’s an enormously strong organ and if you look after it with a healthy diet and (plenty of water) in the first place, you won’t require a detox diet, or any diet for that matter.

To conclude

All of these diets (excluding dietary requirements and religious/belief diets) all have only one thing in common to achieve weight loss - a calorie deficit. Simply put - if you eat less calories than your body requires, then you’ll lose weight. It’s really that simple. We’ve been led to believe that diets are the way to go when achieving weight loss. They’re not - knowledge and understanding is what makes weight loss achievable. It boggles me as to why these diets are still being developed and continue to confuse people of the simplest rule when it comes to weight loss -(as previously mentioned) if you eat less, you’ll lose weight. If you know you eat too many bags of crisps per day, take one out and you’ll lose weight. There’s no confusion with that and you’ll achieve results without having parted with any effort whatsoever. Nobody in the world needs to be on one of these diets to achieve weight loss. If you implement a healthy, calorie conscious diet where you are responsible with food choices, you can control your weight and you can easily maintain your health and size. It will massively improve your overall wellbeing, mood, performance, focus and enthusiasm. Pair this with 20-30 minutes of moderate exercise* (for sedentary individuals) per day and you’ll be well on your way to a healthier body, weight and mindset that’s easy enough to sustain for the rest of your life. And if you do have any concerns or queries about fitness/diet then seek professional help, that’s what we’re here for. Do not look at the front page of magazines that tells you to do diet “X, Y or Z” for weight loss, any fool can tell you to do a silly diet because “it worked for Sally”. This doesn’t guarantee that it’ll work for you.

*This doesn't have to involve the gym if you’re really not fond of joining one. Nor does it have to be done all in one go. It doesn’t matter what you do, just as long as you do it. You could go for 3 ten minute walks per day, take the kids out to play, take the dog for a walk, dance with your favourite music on, some at-home yoga, join a walking group for extra support etc. That’s how I lost 2 stone. I simply walked to and from college and started eating responsibly. Do something you enjoy, if you enjoy it, you can guarantee you’ll love it and get results without having it feel like a chore.

Other things you can do that contribute weight loss:

Believe it or not, you shouldn’t just rely on your exercise as a way to keep fit and burn calories. You can add small “simple weight loss techniques” to your day that contribute massively to your weight loss goal… and you won’t even realise you’re burning them! These “techniques” are more beneficial than you realise and you can add them to your daily routine straightaway with no extra time or hassle added to your day. Let’s have a look at the list:

1. Park further away than usual

2. Get off the bus one stop earlier

3. Take the stairs

4. Stand up and sit back down when you’ve been sitting for more than 10 minutes

5. Stand instead of sit

6. Shopping (physically doing it rather than online and walk along more isles)

7. Gardening

8. Walk around whilst on the phone

9. Do your laptop work at a standing desk

10. Refill your water bottle every hour

11. Fidgeting (yep - really)

12. Do your tasks/chores

13. Do your housework

14. Take more trips to the bathroom

15. Walk the long way back to your desk or work space

16. Get up half an hour earlier - this not only gives you a chance to do a few chores but being awake will require more calories than being asleep

Basically anything that involves more movement will allow you to burn more calories. If you have a sedentary job/lifestyle you’ll definitely want to add these into your daily routine. If you imagine all the extra exercise you’ve now done just by adding in a few from the above list, you’ll have easily burned up to another few hundred calories per day, and you haven’t even had to put a pair of trainers on!

I urge you to try and explore new, home-cooked, simple meals with lots of greens instead of convenience foods so that you have a wider selection of meals that you enjoy without breaking the bank or your belly. Take advantage of using Google and other websites for free recipes and give them a try.