The Most Dangerous Diets
There are plenty of unhealthy ways to lose weight, and a Junk Food Diet is one of the worst ways you can lose weight. The concept is simple. As long as you consume fewer calories, you can eat unhealthy food and still lose weight.
A fairly new diet is the Ice Cream diet. The rationalization is that ice cream is a dairy product and has calcium in it. If you have enough calcium you won’t store extra fat. What the diet creator never tells you: ice cream is full of processed fats and sugar, which causes you to gain weight in all the wrong places.
Another common Junk Food diet is the Slim Fast Diet. Many people wouldn’t think that this a Junk Food, but when the first ingredient on the weight loss shake is “sugar”, I would consider this Junk Food. These shakes are basically a candy bar with a multi-vitamin injected into it.
Why it’s Dangerous: These diets consist of no nutritional value. Since the diet is based on few calories, you end up hungry most of the time and lack important nutrients that your body needs. This diet teaches us a very important principal: Not all calories are created equal.
The One Ingredient Diet
The concept for these types of diets is to pick one healthy food, and consume it morning, noon, and night. Ever heard of the Cabbage Diet? What about the Watermelon Diet? There is a saying, “too much of a good thing, is bad”. The types of diet that only consist of one ingredient prove this adage true.
Why it’s Dangerous: Even though you may be eating something healthy all day, there just isn’t one ingredient that has all of the necessary vitamins and minerals that your body needs to function properly.
An interesting side effect of too much of the same food – even if it is healthy – is that you can actually start to build an allergy to the food. Certain food allergies can result in some dangerous side effects.
The Low Fat Diet
The low fat diet craze began in the 1980’s, and the diet consists of banning foods that contain any fat – including the healthy fat that is good for you. The result of this diet was low fat foods were created that consist of replacing fat with loads of sugar or sodium. The result of too much sugar and sodium is weight gain. How ironic.
Why it’s Dangerous: Your body needs healthy fats to absorb nutrients in the body, protect vital organs, store energy and keep you healthy. According to Dr. Joseph Mercola, healthy fats such as Omega-3 “helps fight and prevent heart disease, cancer, depression, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, diabetes, hyperactivity, and many other diseases”. Simply put, low fat diets are not a healthy way to lose weight.
There are plenty of popular low carb diets out there, thanks to diets like The Atkins Diet and The South Beach Diet. However, just because these low carb diets are popular, does not mean that they are healthy for you or proven to keep the weight off.
Why it’s Dangerous: Short term, you may end up losing weight. Like most diets out there, this is not a long term solution to weight loss, and can really end up hurting you in the long run.
Your body needs healthy carbohydrates to function. The lack of carbohydrates causes you to become weak and lethargic. This results in losing your ability to exercise. If you really want to lose weight, exercise is key to your success.
The Too Extreme Diet
One of the extreme diets is the Tapeworm Diet. The concept of the diet is that you can eat anything you want, since the tapeworm inside your body eats most of the food. This is another extreme diet that encourages you to take desperate measures for you to continue to eat unhealthy, but still lose weight.
Another extreme diet is the HCG Diet. The diet consists of consuming the pregnancy hormone HCG while staying away from processed foods, sugar, carbohydrates and fat. On the diet, you are only allowed to consume 500 calories a day.
Why it’s Dangerous: The Tapeworm Diet is very dangerous because it can cause some very serious medical conditions. The tapeworm is a parasite that eats away at your food and even your essential organs. The diet has been known to cause nausea, fever, diarrhea, and even organ failure. No diet is worth destroying your own organs and landing you on an organ transplant waiting list.
While the HCG Diet’s weight loss results are astounding, there are dangerous side effects that come with consuming only 500 calories a day. There is no way for someone on the HCG diet to exercise, since they become extremely weak and lethargic. The HCG Diet can result in experiencing dizziness, passing out, and uncontrollable shaking. This is not a safe diet, and the only people that say it is safe, are the ones who are selling it.
Bottom Line: If you need to lose weight, don’t turn to dangerous diets. Eat a variety of healthy foods throughout the day, don’t starve yourself, and regularly exercise.
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