Of course, when it comes to healthy eating, there are many alternative diets that people want to claim to be healthier than the traditional calorie counting method. They are usually motivated by a desire to sell a book or a variety of foods, but some people rely on these methods.
The most famous diet lately has been the Atkins diet and its many imitators: the South Beach diet, GI and the rest. These are basically high protein diets that tell you that carbohydrates (‘carbs’) are bad, and you need to reduce or even eliminate them from your diet altogether. While nutritionists are incredulous that anyone would seriously consider eliminating an entire food group from their diet, the books have sold by the millions.
The dirty little secret to protein diets is that they help you lose weight, but only in the short term. They do this by causing you to give yourself a disease called ketosis, caused by a lack of carbohydrates, causing you to lose weight, feel bad, and have terrible breath. However, as soon as you stop the diet and go back to your old habits, you will simply regain all your weight.
It’s a similar situation with many other diets, including weight loss shakes, which rarely contain anything that resembles a balanced meal. Instead, they flood your body with protein and little else, forcing you to burn fat, but again, the effect wears off quickly if you stop using the shakes.
A cynic might say that you’re not actually trying to help you lose weight or eat healthy, but are trying to keep you on your dodgy diets forever. If you want to eat healthy, keep your balance; no matter what they tell you, that will never change.