There are many diets out there that tell us if we eat this particular food we will lose weight, if we eat certain foods we will feel healthier. cleavlandclinic.org states that, “Fad diets are eating plans that are often promoted as the “best” or “fastest” approach to losing weight. They can sound like a newly discovered “hack” that promises a better, healthier you.” So before you decide to take the fad diet approach consider the following essentials, checking with a health professional to see if it’s the right diet for your bio-individual needs, how the diet makes you feel after a seven day trial, if you are getting the appropriate nutrients your body needs, if the diet is good on its promise.
Your Bio-individual Needs
Everyone has different needs and is unique in what supports their health and happiness. For example, eating a steak may not be best for your heart health, where’s having fish is perfect for your omega 3 nutritional needs and gives you tons of energy. So, when it comes to fad diet’s what you want to consider is if the temporary diet supports your nutritional needs as an individual. Consider consulting with your health care physician to see if the nutrition you are getting from the fad diet is appropriate for your needs. In this case, your physician may want to run some blood tests ,and examine your health thoroughly.
Your Mood After Every Meal
What you want to consider with a fad diet after every meal is how it make you feel. What this looks like is a quick check-in on your energy level and mood after every meal. Lot’s of fad diets promise to make you look and feel a certain way, so you want to carefully examine what mood you are in after consuming each meal. Consider wether you feel light headed, dizzy, energetic, or as if you have over eaten and vice versa. If a particular diet is not contributing to you being in a better mood, it is time you consider letting it go for a bio-individual diet.
Nutrients Your Body Needs
After examining how you feel after a fad diet, check in on the nutritional facts to see if your body is getting exactly what it needs. The nutritional facts can be found on the back of the packaging of every food, and if there isn’t a label its safe to say you may not want to consume it. If you do not know what nutrients your body needs, try speaking with your health care physician to run some tests to see what you lack, and are getting from a fad diet. If you are not getting the appropriate nutrients, then it is time to adjust your fad diet.
Good on It’s Promise
Lot’s of fad diets make promises, and sometimes they make good on their promises, and in other cases they don’t. If a fad diet is not good on what it promises to do, it is worth considering what your true intentions are for following this diet. A couple of questions you can begin to ask yourself when it comes to choosing a fad diet are, am I doing this because everyone else is? What is my motif for following this diet? Am I looking for a quick fix? These questions will assist you with gaining awareness around why you chose a diet, which will help you get to the truth of wether a diet is good on it’s promise.
To end this, remember that nutrition is bio-individual, which means that you cannot expect what is working for someone else to always work for you. We all get caught up in the hype around the next best thing or shiny new object. If you do find yourself following the crowd, have compassion for yourself, and remember that you internally know exactly what your body needs if you will take the time to create communion and trust with yourself when it comes to your dietary needs.
Not interested in a fad diet? Check out the transitioning e-book link below that will help you align with a more plant based diet or assist you with creating improved eating habits.
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