Celebrities are often a source of inspiration for the public, especially for body image. Famous people are often portrayed at their best and the public wants to aspire to that. As a result, there is a fascination as to what diet they use to keep them looking their best. However, celebrity diets could be setting people up for failure by making it more difficult to lose weight. This fascination with fad diets could potentially do more harm than good.
Don’t Set Impossible Goals
When it comes to weight loss there is an entire industry for it. It can be hard for people to find their way through various fad diets, especially the ones championed by celebrities. Such diets often demand an entire lifestyle change which is extremely difficult and often unattainable in the long term.
Having one, large, overreaching goal can be very daunting and harder to achieve. When people can’t complete a celebrity fad diet, they will feel discouraged. Setting smaller goals that are much easier to achieve leads to better progress. This is because the achievements lead to a sense of pride and that will be the motivator to continue making positive, healthy life choices.
Here’s What a Personal Trainer Thinks
Max Bridger, personal trainer and co-founder of LDN Muscle, holds certain opinions of fad diets. Here are some of his opinions regarding the most popular celebrity fad diets:
The Ketogenic Diet
A low-carb plan that supposedly burns up to ten times more fat than a normal diet. Ketogenesis is a state where the body uses fat as a main source of fuel. In theory, the body only using fat and burning it in the process sounds like a good idea. However, the diet only really causes a calorie shortage, which can happen eating any food.
The diet is said to causes a negative association with food, especially carbohydrates. With the Keto diet, carbohydrates are labelled as the causes of weight-gain. This could lead to strong feelings of guilt or shame due to the harmful association.
The 5-2 Diet
This diet is where people eat only 600 calories for two days per week and eat regularly for the rest of the week. Despite its popularity, scientists have claimed that this form of fasting isn’t sustainable in the long-term. This is because once people return to their normal eating pattern without fasting, they can easily gain the weight they may have lost.
Meal Replacement Shakes
Shake diets entail replacing 1-2 meals per day with a protein based shake and a supposed fat loss ingredient which is yet to be sufficiently proved. All of this is meant to fuel the body but only totals 150 calories. Although cutting out calories can help weight loss, it isn’t enjoyable or fulfilling. Most importantly, it isn’t sustainable beyond a few weeks.
Of course, with the promise of weight loss and excellent marketing these shakes are extremely popular. The problem with these shakes is that they simply don’t have the same nourishment as food.
Slimming Injections
There simply isn’t enough evidence that slimming injections work. They can’t be proven to be false, but they also can’t be proven to be effective. More importantly, there isn’t any confirmation that they are safe to use and don’t have any negative side effects.
You Don’t Have to Be Look Like a Celebrity
These diets can be useful. For example, people who are diagnosed with diabetes find that the Ketogenic diet is extremely helpful for their lifestyle. The problem Bridger is highlighting is the use of these diets through celebrity influence. When diets are undertaken purely for the reason of losing weight in hope of looking like a celebrity, it simply isn’t sustainable.
Any new diet should be evaluated properly with a healthcare professional. It should be treated as a long-term change with the aim of being healthy; not just a quick fix to achieve weight-loss.
