Fad Diets
by Laura Geraghty | 2nd Jan 2024
Happy New Year! The first week of January can be a time where people may put a lot of pressure on themselves to lose the ‘Christmas Kilos’. If you are looking to get healthier this year it is important to do the right way and avoid quick fix fad diets!
The BDA define a FAD diet as: fad diet is a plan that promotes results such as fast weight loss without robust scientific evidence to support its claims. Popular ones include plans where you eat a very restrictive diet with few foods or an unusual combination of foods.
Fad diets are a bad idea for a number of reasons such as having a poor impact on a persons’ relationship with food due to the restrictive nature of these diets. People can struggle to sustain these diets long term which can lead to yo-yo dieting and weight fluctuations. While you may see results on the scales initially these results usually won’t last in the long term and its usually a loss of muscle and fluid mass rather than fat.
Fad diets promote a one size fits all approach ignoring your individual’s needs, goals and life situation, here at gourmet fuel we have a team of nutritionists that can help you make healthy changes that are manageable for you and fit into your life.
Watch out for phrases such as ‘detox diet’ ‘low carbohydrate diet’ ‘juice diets’ and ‘fasting diets’. Any diets that promise miraculous results with ‘magic’ foods or ingredients that speed up your metabolism or burn fat are too good to be true.
So, this New Year avoid these fad diets and instead adopt other sustainable habits that can improve your health in 2024. Habits such three balanced meals day, avoid unnecessary snacking, aim to have a source of wholegrain carbohydrates (think potatoes, brown rice, brown pasta, quinoa), source of protein (eggs, fish, chicken, turkey, beef) and fruit/veg at every meal, aim to do 30 minutes of physical activity a day.
When looking at getting healthier healthy weight loss is anywhere between 0.5kg -1kg a week but let’s not just focus on the scale! We can also see healthy changes by taking measurements or by how our clothes fit and most of all by how we feel!
Here at GourmetFuel we have a team of nutritionists that help you navigate making healthy sustainable changes to your life in 2024! We offer a range of nutritionally balanced healthy meals that can help you kickstart this year!