How to Avoid Diet Schemes

Many dieters fall victim to a diet scheme in their quest for weight loss. These schemes are becoming more common as obesity continues to rise. Avoid these scams in order to protect yourself from their dangerous side effects. The safest and most effective weight loss method is traditional diet and exercise.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Develop a healthier lifestyle instead of relying on fad diets that may lead to immediate results, but offer no long-term solutions to weight loss. Most diets are thought of as temporary solutions to help you achieve your weight loss goals. This causes a problem once you abandon the diet and return to your normal eating routine.

2. Research dieting tips and plans before altering your diet. This will help you avoid schemes and choose an eating style that will give you optimum results.

3. Raise your metabolism through traditional diet and exercise instead of using metabolism-boosting pills based on herbal ingredients. These pills claim to raise your metabolism and help you burn calories faster to lose weight. The ingredients can be dangerous. For example, ephedra was once used as the active ingredient in these pills. It was later found to be similar to methamphetamine. The pills caused high blood pressure, irregular heartbeats, insomnia, nervousness, tremors, seizures, heart attacks, strokes and even death. Metabolism-altering programs include Herbalife, Xenedrine and Trim Spa.

4. Ignore the temptation to take pills claiming to block your body's absorption of fat or carbohydrates. The effects of these pills can be unpleasant as they prevent the body from breaking down nutrients. This can lead to diarrhea, bloating, gas and other gastrointestinal problems. These pills also block the absorption of positive nutrients necessary for the body, such as important vitamins.

5. Drink water instead of expensive teas that claim to facilitate weight loss. Tea contains caffeine, which as a diuretic, leads to water loss not weight.

6. Avoid diet schemes that limit you to one kind of food, such as the Grapefruit Diet and the Cabbage Soup Diet. You cannot sustain proper nutrition on such diets, and there is no magic ingredient that will cause you to lose weight.

7. Institute an exercise regime and make healthy eating choices that allow you the flexibility to have your favorite foods in moderation. This will help you stick to your new lifestyle and achieve your goals.

Tips & Warnings

• If you choose to try a dietary supplement, check with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make sure the product and its ingredients have been tested for safety and effectiveness (see Resources below). Avoid products not endorsed by the FDA.
• Avoid diet scams that can hurt you physically and financially. Most schemes require money for products, books, packaged meals and specialty foods.

Resources

• Food and Drug Administration to check for the safety and effectiveness of a dietary drug

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