All Fad Diets Share This ONE Trait — It May Surprise You!

When you think of all the fad diets over the years, they all have one commonality and one similar trait. It doesn’t matter if it’s intermittent fasting, the ketogenic diet, low carb, Atkins, Paleo, Mediterranean, you can fill in the blank with whatever diet comes to mind, they all have this same goal. What is it?

‍TO PUT YOU IN A CALORIC DEFICIT.

We could simply end it there as that’s the overall solution, but let’s take a deeper dive into fad diets as well as why they may work initially but cause you to fail in the end. At the end of the article, we’ll discuss a way for you to more easily lose, and keep off, any extra weight. 

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Fad Diets Want You to Eat Less

Why would someone want to go on a diet? It’s generally to lose weight, right? What’s the main objective that fad diets want you to achieve? To consume fewer calories than your previous nutrition habits, no?

Fad diets will work fairly quickly, but the progress stalls shortly after, leaving you frustrated and looking for the next fad diet to jump on.

Rather than trying to make fad diets fit your lifestyle, skip them altogether. Let me ask you a question. If someone told you that you couldn’t eat pizza, donuts, ice cream, pastries, pasta, pie, cake, peanut butter, chocolate, and many other delicious carb and fat sources for the rest of your life, could you do it? Probably not. And why should you? It doesn’t fit your lifestyle or your preferences.

Many of these fad diets cause you to completely eliminate macronutrients in an effort to lose weight and help burn body fat. In the end, whether they have you forgoing carbs or fat, the end goal is still the same — putting you in a caloric deficit.

Looking at the fad diets that have you restrict carbs and fat, it’s obvious to understand why they want you to do this — because those are the two most commonly overconsumed macronutrients out there. Most people aren’t overconsuming on protein. But (unhealthy) carb and fat sources are quite easy to consume almost 1,000 calories in a single sitting and not think twice about it. In fact, you may leave the table still hungry.

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What’s a Better Plan Than Praying Fad Diets Work?

The answer is quite simple, but most people fail because they don’t hold themselves accountable. The solution is to track your calories — NO GUESSING. You can use something like MyFitnessPal (the free version works just fine) to log all your meals. 

You don’t know what you don’t know, and weight loss is a numbers game. Consume less than your maintenance calories, and you can lose weight. This method allows you to eat the foods you enjoy (in moderation) so long as you hit your numbers.

So, rather than eliminating entire macronutrients to follow one of the fad diets out there, simply pay more attention to the food you consume, the quantity, and the quality of each source.

If you track your nutrition, stay consistent, and make it more of a lifestyle, you can kiss all those fad diets goodbye forever and see some significant changes in your weight and body.

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