What Happens To My Body When…
I Follow a Faddy Diet

By Dietitian, Juliette Kellow BSc RD

Thanks to weird and wacky fad diets, celebrities seem to shape up in less time than it takes most of us to finish a chocolate bar. It’s no wonder then that many of us are tempted to try their favourite faddy diets too, in an effort to shift those pounds.

Macrobiotic, raw foods, cabbage soup, blood type, facial analysis, detox and food combining diets are all popular with A-listers but, qualified nutritionists agree that most are unhealthy and unlikely to keep the weight off in the long term.

In reality, no matter how many wonderful promises they make, most diets in the faddy dieting camp tend to fly in the face of conventional healthy eating advice and are unbalanced and lacking in essential nutrients because they cut out whole food groups, promote eating just a few foods and/or recommend having foods in certain combos. The result: a poor intake of vitamins and minerals quickly affects the condition of our skin, hair and nails, reduces our immunity, affects our fertility and potentially put us at risk of many different health problems.

Although we’re likely to see a quick weight loss when we first start out – simply because the amount of calories consumed is severely reduced due to a limited food intake – most of us can’t continue to eat like this for long. The restrictive nature of fad diets quickly leaves us craving sugary, fatty foods so that we give up and pile the pounds back on, usually with a few more.

According to a survey carried out by the British Dietetic Association, a third of people ended up even heavier than their original weight, just weeks after starting a faddy diet!

WLR’s Advice

If a diet sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is! Just like Aesop’s hare and tortoise fable, aiming to lose weight at a slow, steady pace rather than at a frantic speed will eventually win the race against those extra pounds – and keep them off.