Fad Or Fab? Everything You Need To Know About The Current Diet Trends
Diet culture is a massive part of our society, with approximately 45 million Americans going on a diet annually. Every year new trends make their way onto the diet scene, and we also see previous trends make a resurgence.
Nowadays, fad diets often gain extra notoriety by going viral on the internet, where we see eventually end up seeing celebrities and influencers hoping on the trends too.
This encourages others to try the latest diet and while that may be beneficial for some people, we should still be cautious about drastically changing our diet.
If you want to find out more about the latest diets, follow along in this article for a handy explanation.
Keto
The ketogenic diet is currently one of the hottest trends in the diet industry. To follow the keto diet, you must stick to a strict low carbohydrate diet, high fat intake. A lot of people who do the keto diet will avoid carbohydrates completely.
The goal of a keto diet is to put your body in a state of ketosis, which means your body starts to burn fat to produce energy instead of the usual method of burning carbohydrates.
Any sort of restricted eating does come across a little extreme, but the benefit with keto is that you are not depriving your body of too many calories.
If the keto diet is followed correctly, you will likely lose weight, which is why the diet is so popular. Another benefit to the keto diet is that it can help with Fatty Liver Disease. This disease occurs when excess fat builds up the in the liver and, unfortunately, the symptoms of the disease often don’t present themselves until the disease is far gone.
There are a few ways the keto diet can help with Fatty Liver disease, check out Ezra’s guide for a more detailed and complete explanation. This could help put your health into focus, and make positive changes for the better.
Of course, it will work differently for everyone, so experiment around with it.
Paleo
The concept behind the paleo diet is that it is designed to resemble the diet our hunter-gather ancestors had thousands of years ago. Of course, we don’t know precisely what our ancestors were eating, but scientists believe it was most likely a whole food diet.
That, combined with the constant physical activity needed to hunt food, likely led hunter-gatherers to have slim, fit physiques and low rates of diseases such as diabetes.
The paleo diet isn’t really restrictive either, with the main food groups being lean meat, fish, eggs, and plenty of fruits and vegetables. The main thing that is avoided in a paleo diet is dairy products, excess oil, carbohydrates, and processed foods.
When it is broken down like that, the paleo diet pretty much resembles what we would consider a balanced diet today.
The potential benefits of the paleo diet are things like lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol, and healthy weight loss. The paleo diet can be a huge lifestyle change, particularly if you do not do the proper research beforehand. Some of the risks that come with the paleo diet are calcium and vitamin D deficiencies.
It would be good to get supplements to counteract those deficiencies if you are set on the paleo diet.
Veganism
Veganism has seen a huge surge in popularity over the past few years, and many celebrities have taken the vegan pledge. The concept of veganism is quite simple to understand, it is a diet that consists of no animal products whatsoever.
Where vegetarians still consume dairy and eggs, veganism takes it a step further and cut ties with the animal industry for good. There are a number of reasons people are choosing to be vegan, the big three being: ethics, environment and health.
The ethics side is self-explanatory, and the environmental reasons come down to the amount of carbon emissions produced and huge water usage within the livestock industry. But what are the health benefits?
One of the leading health benefits of being vegan is that you will likely end up consuming larger amounts of vegetables to bulk up your meals.
This means your body can end up richer in certain nutrients and lower in saturated fats, which can aid with weight loss. Additionally, vegan diets are typically higher in fiber, promoting a healthier gut.
However, it is important to note that going vegan is a huge change and it should be done with proper research to ensure you do not end up with any deficiencies. It may be easier to start by cutting out a few things first and see how it effects your body.
Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is a diet in which you switch between two plans of eating. During one plan you will fast. This means you do not have to cut specific items from your diet, but fasting can be intense, so you need to be prepared for that. Intermittent fasting removes the focus on what you can eat and instead places priority on when you can eat.
During intermittent fasting, you are only allowed to eat during your set specific time, which could be a few hours in the morning or a few hours at night.
One important aspect of intermittent fasting is to stick to the same schedule each day, this allows your body to adapt to the periods of fasting.
No food is allowed during the fasting period, but you are allowed to consume zero-calorie drinks like water, green tea, and black coffee. The main benefit to intermittent fasting is that is can potentially lead to weight loss, better heart health, and improved memory.
However, there are risks that could come from intermittent fasting if you are not careful. It can be difficult to stick with long-term as it could cause major interruptions in your social life.
This diet can seem quite extreme, and it certainly isn’t for everyone. We suggest always visiting your doctor before you start a new diet.
