Over the past decades, we have seen so many weight loss fads that it will practically be impossible to enumerate them all. Four critical components of these fads are that:
- They are usually not based on any real facts.
- The promise of instant results with little effort is usually a major selling point.
- They quickly become widely accepted and the “thing” of the moment.
- Their popularity is usually short lived.
We’ve had so many of these and many folks have been serially disappointed by their lack of result. You can read about some outrageous diet fads here. Interestingly, not all these fads have been total failures. A recent study on some of these weight loss fads actually show that some of them were quite effective.
Let’s now briefly examine some of these effective weight loss fads.
Weight Loss Fads that were Effective
1. Paleo Diet
Paleolithic diet is a diet regime that seeks to recreate the type of diet that humans lived on thousands of years back. Its goal is to eliminate what it considers unnecessary additions to our diet.
Ideally, a paleo diet excludes food such as grains, dairy and legumes. The reason why this was classified as a fad was because the general opinion was that it was, for all intents and purposes, impossible to attempt to go back to the type of diet that pre-historic man lived on.
However, in the pursuit of this diet, a lot of processed foods are avoided and this is a good thing. Secondly, a study that followed about 70 obese test candidates who were put either on a paleo diet or a standard diet confirms the effectiveness of this fad.
Candidates who were put on paleo diet were found to have lost more weight, including the loss of visceral fat which is a really harmful type of fat.
2. Ketogenic Diet
This is another diet fad that is proving to be quite effective. The main goal of this diet is to reduce your body’s dependence on sugar and shift it to ketones. Rather than having to burn sugar for energy, your body has to burn ketones.
The effectiveness of this diet stems from the fact that these ketones are made from fatty-acids. Your body has the ability to easily burn these ketones, converting them to energy. In fact, the body is designed in such a way that if for some reason it fails to find carbohydrates to convert to energy it can switch to ketones. At this time, such a body is said to be in ketosis.
The goal of this diet is therefore to continually keep the body in a state of ketosis by keeping the intake of carbs as low as possible.
This diet was shown to be effective in a controlled study.
3. The 5:2 Diet
This particular diet fad is also known as the fast diet. The way this diet works is that in a week, a candidate is required to eat normally for 5 days and then reduce food intake to between 500 and 600 calories for each of the two remaining days. This should be a weekly practice.
The idea behind this is based on a weight loss method popular known as alternate-day fasting.
While this was regarded as a fad and not something backed by real science, studies are beginning to show that it might actually be effective. Aside from the reduced calorie intake of the two days, it was shown that on the non-fast days, calorie intake was not excessively high.
It has therefore been proven that this method may actually be more than just a fad as it can help with weight loss.
4. Atkins Diet
This diet was created in the 1970s by Robert Atkins, a cardiologist. The big claim of this diet fad was that it will produce weight loss quickly but without hunger.
This diet is a bit similar to the Ketogenic diet we discussed earlier. This is because its primary focus is to get the body to begin to use more of ketones as its fodder for producing energy. The only different is in its practice.
Interestingly, just as with its ketogenic sibling, this method has also been shown by studies to be quite effective at aiding weight loss.
5. Vegan Diet
Vegan diets are based on the total exclusion of any kind of animal products – meat, milk etc. This idea which many saw as unrealistic and unhealthy led to it being classified as a diet fad.
In truth, studies that have been carried out appear to support the claim that this diet scheme can actually help with weight loss. Aside from this, it has also been shown that it may reduce the risk of heart related conditions.
Conclusion
Aside from these five discussed above, there are other diet fads that have been shown to be effective. You can find some these here: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/8-fad-diets-that-work#section3. It’s now left for you to decide which of these you want to work with since you are now sure they work.
Tags: Diet, dieting, fad diets, fat loss, health, lose fat, lose weight, weight loss
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