With the countless fad diets on the market pushing misleading and deceptive claims it’s no surprise that nearly everyone who wants to lose weight is looking for a fast weight loss diet plan or program. An example of fast weight loss diets include low carb diets which instruct you to limit how many carbohydrate foods you eat.

In fact, fast weight loss diets, such as the Atkins Diet and the South Beach Diet, often have phases instructing you to put your body in a a state called “ketosis” where it switches from using carbohydrate for energy to using fat by eliminating carbohydrate from your diet. Not only will you lack many vital nutrients by doing this, it is very extreme and unnecessary, and very difficult to follow through.

What no-one tells you is that it’s only realistic for your body to lose two pounds a week of fat and anything else you lose on a fast weight loss diet will be either muscle or water loss. Not only is this very bad for your health but your body uses up fewer calories as you lose muscle. Water loss also causes you to become dehydrated, since your body is 75% water.

Another side effect of fast weight loss diets is that sudden changes in your diet where you eat a lot less than normal could trigger your body’s natural starvation response. Your body will then conserve its energy and won’t let go of your body fat, which is why often dieters find their fat loss stalling despite how low their calories are.

Something else to consider is that it is very likely that you will re-gain any weight you lost on a fast weight loss diet when you complete your diet. This is due to the extremely restrictive nature of low-carb diets which can result in cravings and subsequent binges as you fall back into your old way of eating, and is also due to the muscle loss which slows down your metabolism.

On top of all this you also have fast weight loss diet programs which tell you to pay for monthly supplies of “necessary” shakes, bars and other supplements while making huge weight loss claims in return. Since 9 out of 10 dieters return to dieting after putting the weight they lost back on imagine how many customers are sucked into the hype, invested hundreds of dollars on fast weight loss diets, only to find that despite all that money they invested they’re back where they started!

The key to successfully and permanently losing the fat is not to drastically lower calories, nor to label carbs as evil and avoid them like the plague, as many fast weight loss diets advocate. Instead, you will get more effective results by changing your eating habits and eating smaller, but more frequent meals and cutting way back on processed, fatty and high-sugar foods.

Fast weight loss diet plans and programs should be avoided if you want to lose the fat safely. The only solution to permanent weight loss is to make healthy eating part of your lifestyle by replacing your negative habits, and incorporate regular exercise into your routine. This should include both aerobic exercise which helps melt the fat off and strength/resistance training which will build muscle to speed up your metabolism and avoid muscle loss, something many fast weight loss diets are guilty of.