An Overview of Weight Loss Diets
Weight loss is a commitment. It takes a strong resolve and a desire to be healthy. Before starting your weight loss journey for good, you must ask yourself if you are ready to make some sacrifices. A motivator is essential when you are on this journey. When you dwindle among the healthy and unhealthy options or thinking about skipping the exercise, your motivator can put your mind on the right path. In terms of weight loss, the bottom line is you have to burn more calories than you eat. There are multiple diets that help you achieve this. Each one of them, however, has its own quirks. Some are widely followed but are not that good for you and some are mostly unknown but may work the best for you. Before venturing on your weight loss journey, you must know what you are getting into. Let’s review some of the trending weight-loss diets.
Various Weight Loss Diets:
1. Vegan Diet: Let’s get the most nonsensical one out of the way first. The vegan diet is what happens when you take the good things to their extreme and turn them bad. In veganism, eating anything from the animal source is forbidden. Not only meat and eggs but dairy, vitamin D3, whey, gelatin, albumin, casein, and honey as well!
Benefits: May be beneficial for weight loss due to low fat and high fiber alternatives to foods from animal sources. It could also reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, etc. (While making you susceptible to other diseases).
Drawbacks: Since all the animal sources are abandoned, there are a lot of essential nutrients that lack in a normal person’s vegan diet. This can cause severe issues and possibly death in the long run. These nutrients include Omega 3, vitamin D, vitamin B12, iron, zinc, calcium, iodine, etc.
2. Intermittent Fasting: After the living nightmare of the vegan diet, let’s discuss something that is based on scientific principles and has proven effectiveness regarding health benefits and weight loss. In intermittent fasting, instead of working on what you eat, you work on when to eat. Popular methods of intermittent fasting include warrior diet, eat-stop-eat method, 16/8 method, and 5:2 diet.
Benefits: Intermittent fasting provided the best weight-loss percentage among all the diets. It also helps in reducing cholesterol along with blood sugar. It improves cellular repair and grows new brain cells. This reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s.
Drawbacks: Intermittent fasting is known to show better results for men but not for women. The fasting can be detrimental for those who need to maintain a certain amount of blood sugar level in the blood.
3. Keto Diet: Keto diet is one of those things which have some merit but not always suitable in the real-world scenario. Keto diet is a low-carb high-fat diet. In which, the participants reduce their carbohydrates intake to 30-40 gm/day. The principle is, when this pattern is continued for a while, the body enters a state in which it starts burning fat instead of the sugar. This state is known as Ketosis.
Benefits: Reducing the sugar intake results in reduced production of insulin. This helps in lowering the risk of diabetes, and certain cancers. The fatty foods give you a sense of fullness and keep you from eating for longer.
Drawbacks: Cognitive function slows down due to the lack of sugar. The lost weight springs back up once you stop the diet. The changes in metabolism can be too much to handle. This leads to certain irreversible changes in bodily functions and could lead to more diseases.