High-Protein Diets

The Fad Premise:
Protein diets focus on eating meat, poultry, fish and eggs; while restricting carbohydrates.  High protein foods are thought to suppress the appetite and increase the calories expended due to difficulty digesting protein.

Truth:
High protein diets are potentially dangerous.  They put strain on the kidneys and liver.   These diets may be high in fat and increase the health risks from high amounts of cholesterol and saturated fat.  Any initial weight loss may be largely due to water loss, not body fat. Restricting carbohydrates causes weakness, nausea, and possibly dehydration.  It deprives you of fiber, essential vitamins and minerals.

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High-Fiber Low-Calorie Diets

The Fad Premise:
The thinking is that fiber doesn’t contribute calories because it can’t be digested.  And because high-fiber foods give you a feeling of fullness that helps curb hunger, a diet very high in fiber should make losing weight easy.

Truth:
Fiber is necessary and good, but eating too much is not always better.
Too much fiber can cause constipation, cramping, diarrhea, and dehydration if enough liquids aren’t consumed.  High-fiber, low-fat vegetarian type diets are too restrictive and difficult to stick with for long periods.  These diets are too low-in-fat, and the body cannot do without fat.

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Single-Food Diets

The Fad Premise:
Single food or food specific diets are based on the premise that some foods or categories of foods, have “magical” fat-burning and weight loss properties.

Truth:
No food or single food groups can “burn off” fat.  Grapefruit, rice, fruit, and cabbage soup diets do not have “magical” weight loss abilities.  Diets prescribing a single food category or combination of foods, such as eating only grains together are unfounded and unhealthy.  There are no special foods necessary for a certain blood type.  Single food diets lack variety, are monotonous, and are quickly discarded.  They are unbalanced and don’t provide adequate amounts of the nutrients necessary for good health.

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Extreme Low-Calorie Diets

The Fad Premise:
Very low-calorie diets (300-1000 calories per day) will help you take off pounds fast.

Truth:
When you restrict your calorie intake by eating very low-calorie foods or by drinking low-calorie liquid formulas, your metabolism slows down.  You initially lose a few pounds (mostly water), but usually gain it back--and often more.  These diets are very dangerous and need medical supervision.  Dieters feel dizzy, tired, and weak.  Severe reduction in protein can weaken the heart, cause heart failure, and death.  Women may experience irregular menstrual cycles or stop altogether.

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Fasting

The Fad Premise:
Fasting is a popular method to start a weight-loss program and is thought to clean out toxic wastes from your body.  Fasting is also thought to rejuvenate and revitalize our systems by “burning up” old and worn out tissues.

Truth:
Fasting can be dangerous and may kill you.  Fasting is the same as starving.  It deprives your body of energy and essential vitamins, resulting in weakness, dizziness, and tiredness.  Fasting causes your metabolism to slow down to conserve energy, so any weight loss is very small.  Any weight loss that occurs is from water and lean body mass from organs (like the heart).  The misconception that fasting “cleans out” your body is completely opposite of the truth.  Fasting produces a build up of ketones that are harmful to the kidneys.

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Weight Loss Surgery

The Fad Premise:
Weight loss surgery is an operation that includes gastrointestinal surgery to stomach stapling to gastric bypasses. Other options are stomach wrapping, jejunocolic bypass, truncal vagotomy, and biliopancreatic diversion. Basically these operations include creating a small stomach pouch. As the size of the pouch avoids an individual to eat in excess, and if he tries to eat too much he will feel ill. A quick fix.

Truth:
Many diseases can accompany weight loss surgery. According to the surgeons, a person trying to shed some extra inches by weight loss surgery may prove fatal for him as these surgeries are accompanied by a series of harmful after effects, such as pulmonary embolism, liver disease, kidney disease, stomach cancer, esophagus, pancreas and bowel and vascular thrombosis just to name a few. Weight loss surgery is basically for those people having a weight of 100 pounds or more to lose. According to the doctors obese people should exhaust all other options of losing weight and consider weight loss surgery as their last resort.

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Medical Gimmicks, Shots, Pills

The Fad Premise:
B12 shots and prescription drugs can be a fast, safe and easy way to decrease appetite, lose weight and increase energy.

Truth:
Any ethical physician will inform their patient(s) that the human body cannot store excess vitamins and will in fact expel any excess vitamins not used, making the shot ineffective for increased energy and or weight loss unless given daily injections which would not be practical or safe. A sublingual vitamin would suffice for the same result, and, any weight loss would be from the reduced calorie diet and exorcise plan provided. There are many Prescription drugs for appetite control and all have serious side effects which can effect the pulmonary, cardiac and nervous systems, and can be fatal. Extreme caution should be used with these drugs and the need to lose weight should out weigh the risks for this option. Keep in mind that many over weight people already suffer from additional health problems and these drugs could compound the health issues. Always seek a second opinion.