Health & Diet

Weight loss: The easy diet mistake you might be making – ‘it doesn’t work’

Dr Chris discusses fasting diets combatting diabetes

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Whether a person is wanting to lose weight for health reasons, a holiday or for a specific occasion, there is no healthy or sustainable quick-fix that can help. And with statistics showing there’s a rising interest in dangerous weight loss tactics this year alone, experts have pointed out how to spot a fad diet and warned slimmers away from being tempted to try them.

These diets are often promoted as the “fastest way to lose weight” but nutritional experts at Muscle Foods have advised there are safer ways to drop the pounds by making sustainable changes.

It has been recorded that the average person will try at least 126 fad diets in their lifetime and more often than not, cannot maintain it.

Nutrition expert Vic Coppin, discussed the problems slimmers can run into when they opt for a quick-fix.

“One of the issues with focusing on the outcome is that it’s not necessarily something we have control over, and depending on your goals, the outcome can feel far away and out of reach,” she said.

“One of the main reasons fad diets don’t work is because they aren’t sustainable and are heavily outcome focussed.

“Instead of focusing on the process like getting your steps in, eating a balance of nutrient-packed foods and the right amount of calories they fixate on the end goal.”

She made it clear that this isn’t sustainable and can cause people to create poor eating habits.

Fad diets are often extremely difficult to stick to as our bodies crave a variety of foods and don’t perform well under restriction.

People who opt to follow a fad diet often fail to stick with them for a longer period of time, and suffer from the feeling of “failing”.

This in turn, can have a negative impact and promote binge eating.

This cycle ruins our relationship with food and can damage our sense of self-worth.

With a fad diet also comes bad habits and Vic warned the results aren’t always what they may seem.

“Because the diets place the emphasis on scale weight from the get-go, we see these numbers as a sign of success or failure,” she said.

“[We] stop taking any other signs of progress into consideration for the weeks that follow.”

She acknowledged these kind of habits are tricky to unlearn but it’s important to only ever use scales to show trends over time, weeks and months, not day by day.

There are other forms of tracking, such as pictures and measurements, which can tell a slimmer more about progress and the changes that are taking place in their body.

Mental signs are also important, as feeling healthier and happier is an essential tool for sustainability.

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