If you are seeking a healthy weight loss diet, you may want to first understand how popular diets work. This will enable you to choose the right diet plan. Any diet you encounter will generally fall in one of the following categories:
The No-Fat Diet
The Concept: These diets encourage eating every food you encounter that has no fat. The logic thrown about is that since it’s fat-free, it will not make you fat.
The Truth: Everyone knows that fats contain calories, but no-fat diets aren’t the answer. Some amount of fat in your diet keeps off hunger, helps in protein digestion and absorption of vitamin D. Skim milk and no-fat cereals deprive you of these benefits. Furthermore, most no-fat diets are packed with sugar and are devoid of vitamins, minerals and fiber. Before you choose a healthy weight loss diet always read the label for the exact content.
The No-Action Diet
The Concept: These diets just tell you that you will lose weight just by reducing your caloric intake and without any form of exercise.
The Truth: Although reducing caloric intake is very important, extensive research is only pointing out to the fact that as you restrict calories, your body reduces fat burning and encourages fat storage. This is the body’s natural contingency response when faced with a food shortage. Regular exercise will not only help you get fitter, but also keep off the excess weight.
The Calculated Calorie Diet
The Concept:
These include chips and cookies that are packed into 100-calorie portions. They seem to help you calculate the calories you consume and avoid excess calories.
The Truth: Firstly, these are no different than junk foods, as they are processed foods, and do not possess fiber and other nutrients. They are not filling and leave you wanting more. If you want a healthy weight loss diet, you would rather eat a healthy butter-free vegetable sandwich or the recommended five portions of fruits in a day, rather than snacking on artificial foods.
The Toxin Terminator Diet
The Concept:
This diet includes various juices or a combination of fruit juices with molasses, or the like. It is believed that helping your body flush out toxins can help you lose weight.
The Truth: Again this is partially true. Detoxification is good for your body, but there is no evidence that it significantly improves health. Also, it does not guarantee weight loss at all. Moreover, you cannot survive just on orange juice; you need a whole meal. Those who follow a detox plan, usually go in for high-calorie meals, thus nullifying the purpose. A healthy weight loss diet is more about eating a high fiber diet.
The Protein-Fat Combination Diet
The Concept: The claim is that as long as you eat enough protein, you need not worry about the fat.
The Truth: Although protein is good for the body, high protein is not recommended for everyone, as it can cause certain health problems. Meat with fat is very unhealthy and will definitely make you put on weight. There is no scientific evidence that proteins and fats consumed together effect weight loss; in fact our bodies store any micronutrients taken in excess. Animal protein obtained from egg whites, fish or skinless chicken is much healthier.
The Donut Diet
The Concept:
This diet plan claims that you can eat just about anything, as long as your calorie count is within the daily limit. You can also indulge in cream-filled and sugar-glazed donuts as long as you maintain your daily calorie count.
The Truth: Although daily caloric intake counts, you must understand that our bodies treat calories from protein differently than calories obtained from fat. A large percentage of calories from protein are burnt down during the process of digestion, whereas a very small percentage of calories from fat are burnt down. Therefore most of the fatty calories from the donut will be stored as fat.
If you want to know more about weight loss diets that are healthy, you can download a free copy of the “Experts Guide to Understanding Weight Loss” from the link below right now.