Fad Diets - Popular Ways to Drop Weight Fast

We'll examine some of the more popular fad diets throughout the years. Believe it or not, some of these
have actually been circulating for a while and are still a popular diet for quick weight loss - mostly via
word of mouth. These diets have aquired somewhat of a mythology about them over time. A person you
know probably knows someone or heard stories of someone who lost a drastic amount of weight on
them.

Popular Fad Diets of Years Past and Present:

1.) Cabbage Soup Diet

What It Is: This is a classic. It's a cabbage soup consisting of broth, a generous amount of cabbage,
onions, celery and a few other veggies as directed. Only the soup may be consumed - nothing else over
the course of about a week. People do lose drastic weight on this diet, and hospitals even use it to get
patients to drop large amounts of weight quickly due to health issues or impending surgery.

Why It's Hard: It's very possible you might never want to touch soup again in your life - even if you're a
soup lover after doing this diet for too long. Your hunger is never satiated since you are really largely
consuming water and water based foods (the veggies). This is also why you drop the weight so fast, but
it doesn't do much as far as making your stomach at ease. As a matter of fact, many people report
gastrointestinal discomfort while on this diet (go figure - it's composed mainly of cabbage - a known
gastrointestinal irritant).

Really, this diet is very tough to stick to. The soup is actually pretty tasty, especially if you flavor and spice
it correctly, but you will soon change your mind after even two days on a basically all liquid diet. The
obvious problem is that weight that is taken off very fast usually comes on even faster, so take care to
avoid this pitfall if you undertake this difficult fad in dieting.

2.) The Atkins Diet - The Fad Diet with the Bad Rap

What It Is: When this diet was released from the late Dr. Atkins it was supposedly and all you can eat - as
long as it's pure protein diet. The Atkins diet immediately got bad press as an unhealthy heart clogging
diet due to it's lax restrictions on high fat, high cholesterol foods such as eggs, cheese and bacon. The
Atkins fad went through a second resurgence in about 2001 as a quick and easy way to melt the pounds
off quickly without sacrificing everyone's favorite vice : FAT. Of course, the criticism of this diet has mainly
been from nutritionists who usually preach that variety is the spice of the diet, as well as an indicator of
balance and health.

The Atkins diet was against all that had been established by the food pyramid and traditional nutritional
thinking when it was released for publication. While it's true that the straight Atkins diet did in fact result
in many health problems for people such as high cholesterol, low energy and heart issues, some
creative spawns of this concept rounded the diet out into a well balanced eating plan that promoted heart
and circulatory health as well as energy enhancement and mental well being.

Why It's Hard: Most people who go on this fad diet undergo something called a state of ketosis due to a
lack of carbohydrates and sugar in the system - basically, their blood sugar bottoms out. You will
probably get bad breath - dubbed "ketone breath". You may feel weak, depressed and fatigued - a sign of
ketosis and blood glucose irregularity. A lot of people experience constipation due to a lack of fiber and
abundance of colon binding products such as red meats, cheeses and other heavy foods that are slow
moving through the system. Oh yeah, and you may never want to look at a scrambled, deviled, hard
boiled, parboiled, poached, sunny side up, boiled or fried EGG again in your life!

3.) The All You Can Eat for Seven Days Diet

What It Is: Consists of choosing one designated food group for each of the seven days. An example of a
diet plan for seven days would be: Day one : Chicken, Day Two : All fruit Day Two : All vegetables. There
are usually minimal restrictions in which fruits or vegetables you may consume, since the diet is
inherently restrictive already. The whole idea and appeal is that you can eat as much as you want as
long as it is within that one food group for each of the seven days.

Why It's Hard: It's very hard. This diet is almost guaranteed to result in hunger pains of an unbearable
degree, since no one food can usually satisfy anyone's hunger for a reasonable Variety is the spice of
life, and this applies two-fold to diet boredom and how it leads ot overeating and binges. Once you go off
of this diet, you will almost surely gain the weight back, and fast. The problem with diets like this is that
they trigger response of over eating and stuffing due to severe deprivation.

4.) The Snickers Diet

What It Is: You get to eat only Snickers candy bars and may drink coffee or water only with this fad diet. I'm
actually not sure how many Snickers bars are allowed per day, but do know someone that has a friend
who lost over thirty pounds following this diet, but sacrificed her health, her skin and mental well being in
the process.

Why It's Hard: The Snickers candy bar is basically nutritionally void, save for the few peanuts it has
scattered throughout. It is a calorie dense, high sugar content food, which leads to: high blood sugar,
hunger, terrible skin problems, terrible breath, constipation, immune breakdown, unhealthy heart, loss of
mental focus and clarity.

Fad diets are often tempting as a quick fix for drastic and fast weight loss for events like weddings and
bikini or briefs clad vacations, but they should be regarded with caution. Just as long as you go into a
popular fad diet knowing the pitfalls, and are prepared to go into it armed with an appetite aid of
willpower or supplementation - go for it - just don't expect long term results.

The "fad diet". It's unfortunately as American as apple pie,
as we all know, since we've all caved at one time or
another to a fad! What is a fad diet? It's a diet that is short
lived due to serious constraints on any reasonable and
normal consumption of food. A fad diet is also usually a
very fast way to drop weight - this is why they are so
appealing to people who want quick results with less
work.

On this page, we'll talk about four very popular fad diets:

The Cabbage Soup Diet
The Atkins Diet
The All You Can Eat for Seven Days Diet
The Snickers Bar Diet

But, in the end a fad diet often leads to post-diet binge
eating and results in subsequent weight gain after the
initial diet has lost its momentum - which it almost always
does. There are some precautions to take if you're going
to try one of these "diets of the day", since you don't want
to subject yourself to the unavoidable spike in appetite, or
weight gain after the diet's appeal wears off, and you start
to go back to your old ways. There are some excellent
ways to curb your appetite with a natural appetite
suppressant supplement since most of these diets will
leave you in a constant state of hunger, and worse yet,
give you an even larger appetite in some cases due to
insulin irregularity.