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Fad Diets

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Fad Diets versus Healthy Life Style Changes
Valerie Heintz

Fad Diets versus Healthy Life Style Changes

A commitment to a lifestyle change is needed to become healthy. The following essay will help give you a better understanding of why fad diets are not the answer for becoming healthy.
Most fad diets and healthy lifestyle changes are both based on reducing the number calories that you take in every day. Unlike healthy lifestyle changes fad diets usually recommend severely reducing the number of calories below the recommend daily amount. According to the Medical New Today website http://www.medicalnewstoday.com, the average adult male should consume approximately 2,500 calories a day to maintain his weight and 2,000 calories for an average adult female. These numbers can change depending on age, gender and the amount of physical activity a person performs daily. In the past I have gone on several fad diets that were asking you to reduce your calorie intake to as low as 600 calories a day, way below the recommended amount. Yes you will reduce your weight quickly, but you will also be losing muscle tone as well and as soon as you increase your calorie intake the weight will come back on.
Some fad diets have you eliminate certain foods from your diets. For instance the South Beach diet wants you to eliminate certain fruits like pineapples, watermelon, and raisins because they are higher in sugar. On the Medifast Diet they are asking you to eat 5 of their Medifast products each day kind of like the slimfast diet. The cabbage soup diet is based on eating their cabbage soup every day and following their crazy 7 day meal plan. On day one you are to only eat fruits (except bananas) and the soup. To see the outline of this plan you can visit their website at http://www.cabbage-soup-diet.com. In changing your lifestyle habits you are not eliminating the kinds of foods

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