Fad Diets: Myth or Reality?
Diets are the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of weight loss. It is true that this is the point of view of an extremely sedentary person, but I really don’t believe workouts alone can make fat people lose weight. Do you want to know why? Simply because fat people cannot do the workouts corectly, thus their effect is very much diminished, or even canceled.
Fad diets are not a discover of the modern age. One of the oldest such diets is the Grapefruit Diet, originally known as the Hollywood diet, and which was invented in 1930. Can you imagine that almost 80 years later, this diet is still popular?
With such a popularity, you’d say, and you’d probably be right, that the grapefruit diet really works. People get results, then they tell their friends, who follow it and lose weight, and so on.
The principle of this diet is the supposed existence in the grapefruits of a substance that acts like a catalyst in the body fat burning process. This fact has never been scientifically proven.
Diets like this one, which are not supported by scientific evindece were called Fad Diets.
Amongst the most known ones are: the Atkins diet, the South Beach diet, the Cabbage soup diet and the Grapefruit diet we’ve just talked about.
Who cares about the science if the method works? I lose weight, I get rid of 10 pounds in two weeks or in three weeks, and that’s all that matters for me. This is how the former Hollywood diet managed to survive all this period, with only a change of the name and a few variations of the foods included. Its main idea was to have only three meals per day and no snacks in between those meals, and at each meal to eat 1/2 grapefruit. This is not too restrictive and probably this is why it appealed so much to those women and men who tried to get fit again.
However, when attempting such diets, we should take care not to harm other organs. For example, citric fruits, including grapefruits, are known to be acid and their long-term consumption may lead to stomach disorders like gastritis or even ulcer.
