The five worst diets that will cause you harm
A SYDNEY doctor has identified five of the worst diets which will cause you more harm than good. Dr Nick Fuller said weight loss has become a cultural obsession and many of them are unrealistic to sustain and unhealthy to follow including Kim Kardashian’s Keto Diet.
Lifestyle
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FOR most of us our New Year’s resolutions have long fell by the wayside.
And for the majority this would have included a plan for our battle with the bulge — a diet or weight loss program that was not realistic to sustain, unhealthy to follow and in some cases extreme.
Sadly, this is the norm. Weight loss has become a cultural obsession. Did you know that by age of 45 we have tried 61 diets and over the course of a lifetime we will have spent 31 years of our life dieting. Hard to fathom isn’t it.
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If you are one of those people that weren’t able to stick to your New Year’s plan, don’t be concerned as you’re certainly not alone. There are many reasons why we don’t succeed on diets and un-evidenced weight loss programs.
And it’s not just because of a lack of will power. Your body also starts to work differently as part of the fight-or-flight response to weight loss meaning it works back towards it starting point.
Every year a team of leading and qualified health experts — the U.S. News and World Report — get together to rate the latest diets with respect to their nutritional balance, health benefits, ease of following, safety and of course, weight loss.
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Surprisingly to some, the most popular diets were ranked the worst. BUT it’s quite often in the modern age that the most searched and talked about diets are not the best — their success purely contributed to social media endorsements by big-name celebrities.
Five diets that appeared in the bottom 10:
1. The Keto Diet
This high-fat, low-carb diet is designed to make your body enter a state where it’s relying on fat for energy.
It was ranked the worst diet. Kim Kardashian and Gwyneth Paltrow have certainly been a contributing factor to the popularity of the keto diet.
There is no doubt that it’s a quick effective weight loss strategy but the evidence shows that people don’t keep the pounds off for the long haul. It’s not nutritionally balanced and it’s also difficult to stick to with a large reliance on eating meat and fatty foods — 70% of the dieter’s daily intake is from fat.
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It’s also not safe as we know that giving up fruits, vegetables and wholegrain carbohydrates is the opposite of what we should be doing to prevent lifestyle disease such as cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The restrictive carb allowance equates to just one piece of fruit a day — radically below the recommended dietary intake.
Take-home message — The short-term weight loss fix is not worth the increased risk of cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease from following such eating practices.
2. Dukan Diet
Much like the keto diet this diet is the quick short-term weight loss success that everyone is after.
It doesn’t teach you healthy eating habits and requires you to largely eat protein.
Such a diet devoid of essential nutrition is not only putting you at serious risk of long-term health issues but you are also likely to experience unpleasant side effects like bad breath and constipation.
Take-home message — Much like the short-term weight loss fix you get from the keto diet, it’s not worth the increased risk of disease.
3. The Fast Diet
It’s the new fad everyone is talking about. Otherwise known as the 5:2 diet — you eat normally for five days of the week and cut your calories to an extremely low 25% of normal intake on two non-consecutive days of the week.
This equates to just 600 calories for males on the two fast days and 500 calories for females — the same amount of calories as two doughnuts. The lack of nutritional guidance on what to eat on the five days when you aren’t fasting and what constitutes a healthy eating pattern raises many red flags.
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The goal is to lose weight and change lifestyle habits but there is no long-term scientific evidence to prove it achieves either which is why it scored so low.
Take-home message — It’s an alternative way to cut calories in your diet if you follow it strictly but the science doesn’t prove it is any better than reduced calorie intake through conventional dieting.
4. Hormone Diet
This diet is based on the notion that you eat to regulate your hormones. Catchy isn’t it! It starts with a two-week detox which of course will equate to a decrease in the number on the scales but this detox-oriented premise lakes scientific merit.
Components of the diet plan and the supplements it promotes are not backed by evidence.
Take-home message — You are unlikely to stick to it long-term and sustain the rapid weight loss you will experience from the initial detox phase.
5. Paleo Diet
Advocates of the paleo diet say we should be eating a diet based on the foods that were available during the Palaeolithic period of more than 10,000 years ago. It requires you to cut out entire food groups like dairy and grains, not only making it an unrealistic diet to sustain but also dangerous and unhealthy due to the key nutrients you are missing. You will experience short-term and rapid weight loss due to a decrease in body water — just like with any diet that is low in carbohydrate.
But there is no research to show it can deliver sustainable weight loss. Take-home message — this is not a nutritionally balanced diet and those advocating we stay away from grains are simply wrong.
Ultimately — regardless of one’s intentions — the paleo diet is founded more on privilege than on logic.
Surprise, surprise! The winning spots went to diets rich in fruits, vegetables, wholegrain carbohydrates and lean protein sources, diets that are nutritionally balanced and diets with science and evidence to back up their claims.
Dr Nick Fuller is the author of Interval Weight Loss, which is a scientifically proven way of redefining the weight your body wants to be, to ensure you lose it and keep it off. For more information go to Interval Weight Loss.