Acai Berry, Another Fad Diet?
December 26, 2008 by nctrower
Filed under Belly Blaster Exercises, Food Plans
You will find many sites on the internet claiming significant weight loss in just a few days with the Acai Berry diet. There are many anti-oxidant related benefits with the acai berry and it’s being stretched a bit to include rapid weight loss. Many of the before and after pictures are taken from sites where the loss was generated from months of a well balanced nutritional food plan and exercise.
Here is a great teleseminar that gives the truth about the acai berry fad that is dominating the internet at this moment
The Real Truth about the Acai Berry Fad
The Myths of Fad Diets
1. Diets that promise quick and easy weight loss are usually based on eating more of one food type and none of another. These do not give the benefits that you would get from a balanced diet. They may suggest you take supplements but many supplements are not absorbed by the body unless they are taken along with the foods that the diet has banned. After a few weeks, if you stick to it that long, you may begin to develop nutritional deficiencies.
2. Fad diets are often boring and over restrictive. After the novelty of the first day or two, you will not enjoy your meals. You will then start to crave food constantly and will break the diet. You may even feel guilty, thinking it is your fault that you did not lose weight.
3. Most fad diets do not follow recommendations of the American Heart Association and similar bodies for fat levels in the diet. Often the diet will recommend high fat foods and low carbs which if taken long term, could result in heart disease. The promoters may tell you that the diet is only intended to be followed for a short time. But you probably will not reach your goal weight in that time, and then what? You either continue with a plan that is not good for your health, or stop and probably gain back what you lost.
4. Many fad diets do not help you to incorporate enough servings of fruits and vegetables in your weight loss program, or give you the variety of foods that your body needs.
5. Quick weight loss diets are just a temporary solution and do not help you to make permanent changes to your eating habits. Permanent changes are the only way to remain at your target weight once you reach it. Fad diets encourage yo-yo diet-binge cycles of fast weight loss and equally fast weight gain. This is worse for your health and your self esteem than if you had stayed overweight all the time.
Whatever the publicity materials may say, these diets will not help you in the long term. The best way to sustain weight loss is to eat a varied and healthy diet, do not overeat, exercise regularly and avoid fad diets.
I totally agree that FAD diets usually end in failure. And I also see the negative effects of eating one kind of food more often (lack of nutritional variety). But what do you think about the South Beach diet? I don’t agree with stage one where you take out all carbs! But if you look at the 2nd and 3rd stages, do you think that the meals are well-balanced? I found that my eating habits totally changed when I went on that diet, and I didn’t feel guilty indulging once in a while. But then I got pregnant and lost control of my love for my friend’s famous chocolate chip cookies! Is that what you mean by FAD diets ending in failure, or is that just losing all self-control?
Hi Jacqueline,
I mean fad diets ending in failure that they don’t teach you how to eat well. In reviewing South Beach Diet briefly, I did see that the ultimate goal is to eat healthy. Most fad diets that I’m referring to are the cabbage diet, lemonade diet, etc.those that really don’t provide all the nutritional value that you need. Yes there is a difference between the fad diets and losing self control!
I’ve never heard of the cabbage or lemonade diets!! How very strange that someone would want to do that to their body! Isn’t it common sense that it just can’t be too good for you? I’m clueless with the diet scene. Last year was my first ever diet with South Beach and it worked so well that I really believe in it. But I think everyone has different bodies that react to diets uniquely. I was pretty lucky to be able to lose 30 pounds on South Beach while still enjoying a little bit of dark chocolate dipped in peanut butter after every meal! Not sure if everyone could do that! But yes, it’s a self-control thing that I need to regain. I think the holidays are pretty tough to try to regain that control…but today is the day I’m going to start being more healthy! Thanks so much for you post! Looking forward to sharing posts with you more often!
Yeah the fad diets are crazy especially out here in LA!! LOL Congrats on your weight loss and I look forward to sharing more stories together on twitter moms! Thanks for all of your “behind the scenes” help!
Hy, cool site. Are You interested for link exchange? My url is
http://bodyton.blogspot.com/
Hope you accept my invite
Thanks.
Best Regards, Danny
I have been rather annoyed recently by all of the acai diet ads on major sites that lead to a fake blog touting several products. I looked a bit deeper and found that people are signing up for free trials from these that are subscription based and when they try to cancel, the phone number doesn’t work. Then of course their card gets charged. Then one of my own ad servers served one of those ads to my site. Ack! Fortunately it seems to not be in the general rotation. But if I see it again I’ll be asking the ad agency to remove it from my account. I have decided that those acai ads are my pet peeve of the month!
Carleen’s last blog post..Fitness Friday: Wii Fit Part III, Tips and Tricks
Hi Carleen! I hear ya! They have been bugging me too! I commented on one of the blogs and my comment has been “in moderation” for months! LOL
Fad diets are a waste of time – but Healthy Chocolate is a great way to loose weight, do watch the video on my site and get back to me for further information.
great post thanks for posting
nicely said.
Hi Alex, Thanks for your kind words.
The cons of the acai berry diet is that the berry itself rots quickly. Most fruits last at least a few days after being picked, but the acai berry becomes ineffectual and spoiled after only 12 hours.
Don’t let this sway you from trying nature’s superfood. As you can see from these pros and cons acai berry diet – the good far outweighs the bad, and there are many more good, potent products out there than there are ineffective ones.