Because of the high value most societies place on physical beauty, many are willing to do just about anything to get their body there, including fad dieting. Fad diets are sometimes quirky, but effective. Their promise of quick weight loss is just too tempting for many of you to pass up. Even though they may deliver on their promise, their is a price to pay.

Because many of them have you drastically cut your calories to levels as low as 800, as is the case of the Cabbage Diet, they reek havoc on your metabolism or your metabolic rate. Your basal metabolic rate is a measure of how many calories you would need if you were at rest all day. Whenever your intake of calories is severely low as is the case in most fad diets, your body goes into starvation mode. This is a state where you body slows down in order to conserve energy.

If you can put up with the diet long enough to reach your weight loss goal, you first of course revel in your accomplishment. However, because it’s not realistic to expect to continue to eat such a low amount of calories the rest of your life, you eventually start eating more. Because your metabolism has slowed down, that excess food is stored on your body as fat. When your metabolism catches up with your new eating habits, you’ve found that you have regained all of your weight back and in many cases, more. Undeterred, you say to yourself, “I did it before, I can do it again.” Hopefully the word “yo-yo” is popping into your head, because as long as you participate in this type of fad dieting, you’re going to go back and forth with your results.

So What should you look for in a diet that avoids these pitfalls? There are, at a minimum, just two. First, ask yourself does the diet require you to consume low calories as described above, If they do, run. They are not a long-term solution and are unhealthy to boot. You don’t need to victimize your body to get the look you want.

Second, ask yourself if this diet is something that you could see yourself doing the rest of your life? The reason that you became overweight in the first place was because of a lifetime of poor eating habits. Fad diets do not address this. They just help you lose weight quickly without seriously taking into consideration how to maintain it. A good weight loss program not only helps you to lose weight, but it also helps you to lead a healthier lifestyle. As such, it encourages a lifestyle change, not a quick fix of quickly losing a few pounds.

In closing, because of the sometimes dramatic results, using fad diets for weight loss is tempting. However, if you want to not only lose the weight, but keep it off, go for what’s best for your body long term. Is it slower? Yes. But sometimes it’s worth being the tortoise if it means beating the hare.

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Fad diets promise quick weight loss, but at what cost. The following are some quick tidbits about some well know fad diets that you need to consider before deciding to make a commitment to one.

Atkins Diet This diet allows you to eat meats high in saturated fat and requires you to cut back on foods full of essential nutrients that are naturally found in fruits, grains and vegetables. To compensate, the diet recommends vitamin and mineral supplementation.

Blood Type Diet Depending on your blood type, you could become deficient in protein or carbohydrates. For example, if you are Type AB, you would essentially become a vegetarian, denying you the nutritional benefits of lean meat such as fish and poultry.

Cabbage Soup Diet This diet is extremely low calorie - less than a 1000 calories - and is deficient in proteins and fats with little micronutrients to show for it. Critics site that much of the weight loss is from water, and therefore is not permanent.

Grapefruit Diet Another calorie restrictive diet, which is primarily how you lose the weight. Versions of the diet sometime let you eat anything you want, while others only require you to eliminate certain foods such as starchy carbohydrates. Researchers have theorized that grapefruit may assist people to lose weight by keeping insulin levels low.

Liquid Diets Liquid diets may incorporate partial or complete meal replacement. As such they may have low intakes of fiber, proteins, fats and other nutrients. They are sometimes used to treat extreme obesity, but they do little in promoting proper nutrition. The most appropriate use of liquid diets are prescribed for those who are going into surgery.

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Another study by researchers at the University of Maryland reinforces that exercise is one of the best methods to lose weight. In the study, the researchers suggests that physical activity may help to reduce the risk of obesity in people with a genetic mutation that predisposes them to a high body mass index, BMI. This study is motivated in part by a gene that has been linked to a high body mass index.

In the study using Amish participants, researchers discovered that those with the gene were no more likely to be overweight than those without the gene as long as they exercised 3 to 4 hours every day. This doesn’t mean you have to stay in the gym for that length of time though. In fact the exercises include moderate activities such as housecleaning, gardening and taking a brisk walk.

What makes this more appealing is that British scientists reported last year that more than half of all people of European descent have one or two copies of a variation of this high BMI gene. In the report, those who had two copies of the genes were on average 7 pounds heavier and were 67 percent more likely to be obese than those who didn’t have it.

So if you need further convincing of the importance of exercising to lose weight, this is it. In addition to this fascinating news, those who thought that they could not lose weight because of genetics should now feel encouraged, for as the report suggests, “bad” genetics can be overcome. In addition to proper eating habits, it will take several hours of moderate exercising for you to be successful. And as stated before, this can include structured activities such as walking and even riding a bike, or household activities such as cleaning your house or raking leaves. The important point to remember is that you need to get your blood pumping and your body moving.

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