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What are the dangers of trendy diets?
Author: Margarita Kuts - doctor-dietitian, gastroenterologist, and body mesotherapist. All articles by the author ➤
How often do we hear the word "diet"! There is probably not a single woman in the world who has not tried some "new super effective" diet at least once! Fashion magazines and television are just bursting with a variety of trendy diets that supposedly can, by the wave of a magic wand, rid us of excess pounds. Oh, if only it were that simple and straightforward, we, dietitian doctors, would probably be out of work!)) Did you know that there are more than two thousand different diets? Why so many? Probably, if at least one really helped to get rid of excess weight and not gain it back, there wouldn't be so many. It's not a complicated matter: just remove some product from your diet, and voilà, you have a new diet. This is what the authors of such "food recipes" in magazines, books, etc., rely on. Today, I would like to talk about what happens when people "go on" such diets. Usually, all these diets, let's call them "magazine diets," are completely unbalanced in their basic food components: proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and microelements. If you constantly limit your body in necessary products, you may end up with:
An impressive prospect, isn't it? And most importantly, by using all these diets, composed by who-knows-who-and-how, you won't achieve the desired result. You might object, "Well, it helped my friend!!!" Of course, it may have "helped" your friend, but who knows what will happen next. And it may not work for you at all, leading you to search for a new diet out of disappointment. Let’s figure out what happens when a person puts themselves through another experiment. Firstly, when a diet is very strict, which is often the case (only vegetables, no meat, salt, etc.), the body experiences stress. It's a war!!! And in a war, all supplies have to be used sparingly and cautiously, even saving some for future use. Well, what if you're not fed again?! What does this all mean? It means that our body feels hunger, and therefore, for safety reasons, it slows down the activity of all metabolic processes, including fat breakdown. Moreover, even from such a meager diet, it manages to store something as fat. So, don’t be surprised if you don’t eat much but your weight either decreases very little or not at all. Secondly, it can also happen that you see a significant weight loss on the scales, but you still can’t fit into your favorite clothes. Why? Let’s take a look at what our body loses when following any of these diets on average:
And at what cost! The body switches to breaking down its own muscle tissue. This happens when a diet is low in protein foods (meat, fish, dairy, and fermented dairy products). When muscle tissue is lost, we stop losing weight because fat is oxidized only in muscles during their contraction, and nowhere else! However, there are diets where protein is present in excess. For example, the Atkins Diet or the Kremlin Diet. This can also cause significant harm to the body: thickening of the blood, deposition of protein on the walls of internal organs (amyloidosis of the kidneys), dysbiosis due to the putrefaction and decomposition of unabsorbed protein, and other unpleasant issues. Thirdly, after using the latest advertised diet, the lost weight returns and then some. And this situation is exacerbated by the loss of muscle tissue. The fact is that fat tissue regenerates much faster than muscle tissue. Any athlete knows how hard it is to gain muscle mass! So, the lost muscle tissue is easily replaced by fat when there's an excess of it. Thus, a person becomes even fatter than before the diet. When attempting to lose weight again, the same process occurs, with even less muscle and more fat. Fourthly, after each unbalanced diet, the composition and distribution of stored fat change. English researchers have found that due to poorly thought-out diets, fat tissue begins to infiltrate internal organs, leading to fatty liver disease and fatty heart degeneration. In conclusion, let me say that you shouldn't swing from one extreme to another! From one trendy diet to another! We are all different, and the reasons for excess weight vary for each individual. It's necessary to find the cause rather than just fight against the external manifestations of such a complex condition as obesity (excess weight). I think it’s essential to consult a specialist who can develop a comprehensive treatment plan, accounting for your individual body characteristics. Good luck! SIMILAR ARTICLES
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