Eating disorders are abnormal addictive behaviors, which
cause food addiction problems. Many are suffering from food
addiction because of fad diets.
What are fad diets?
Fad diets are the popular diets touted to make you thin or
to cure a certain health problem you may have. Fad diets
come and go. Examples of fad diets are the Atkins Diet, the
Weight Watchers Diet, and the South Beach Diet, among many
others.
Nearly all of these fad diets are based on the principle of
calorie restriction - which essentially means depriving
yourself of food or eating only certain types of food while
avoiding others, and following diligently some set of rules
of eating.
Unfortunately, many of these fad diets failed for two
reasons.
Firstly, many individuals fail to adhere to these dieting
plans. They do not have the discipline to follow through
the set of rules of eating dictated by each fad diet plan.
They succumb to the urge of eating. Who would blame them?
After all, normal eating is a normal instinct in any
individual. To force oneself to eat abnormally is against
human instinct. Abnormal eating creates behavioral
problems, which often lead to addictive behaviors and food
addiction problems, such as anorexia and bulimia.
Secondly, dieting impairs your body's metabolism, which
ultimately will turn back on you. Diets, even the
relatively healthy ones, are only short-term solutions to
your weight or health problems. Down the road, these fad
diets will create more problems than what they have solved.
For years, many nutrition experts have warned against going
for fad diets, which often promote unhealthy preoccupation
with food, instead of normal eating. Abnormal or unhealthy
eating behaviors play havoc with your body's metabolism,
which is the rate at which you burn calories. Your
metabolic rate holds the key to weight loss. When you go on
a fad diet, you are in fact "starving" your body, which,
out of its natural instinct for survival, will
automatically reduce its metabolic rate. As a result, you
are not exactly losing the weight you so desperately wish
to lose. The initial weight loss from any fad diet may be
only the loss of water due to the sudden change in your
eating patterns, not the extra pounds you want to shed.
Worse, when you stop dieting, you metabolic rate goes up
again, but not to where it originally was; in other words,
yo-yo dieting (on-and-off dieting) may lead to
malfunctioning of your body's metabolism until it can no
longer burn calories efficiently. The implication is that
your body has learned to maintain its weight with fewer
calories. In other words, your effort in dieting has been a
waste of good intentions. The net result is ultimate weight
gain for you, not the weight loss you had hoped for.
Dieting is only a temporary weight control solution.
According to dietitians, unless you change your lifestyle,
or can adhere diligently and persistently to your chosen
diet regimen for the rest of your life, losing weight
permanently is impossible.
The danger of embracing one fad diet after another is that
your overt preoccupation with your weight and appearance,
such as counting calories, carbohydrates, and worrying
about fat content of you food, may turn into an obsession,
which will develop into eating disorders down the road.
(More on eating disorders in the next article)
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Stephen Lau is a researcher, writing medical research for
scientists. His publications include "NO MIRACLE CURES" a
book on healing and wellness. He has also created several
websites on health and healing.
http://www.longevityforyou.com
http://www.zenhealthylifestyle.com
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