Several people I know are on a “high protein diet” and are losing quite a bit of weight. I would like to lose 10 pounds and the diet sounds easy, but I wonder just how good it is for a person? Is this diet healthy?
This must be a popular diet. Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with it. Without knowing the details, I can’t comment on whether it’s healthy or not.
At a glance, though, it doesn’t seem to mesh very well with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) dietary recommendations as outlined in its MyPlate guidelines.
If the protein diet were a balanced, varied and healthy way of eating that you could stick to forever, it would be fine. But despite what we hear from the diet industry, research continues to demonstrate that fad diets don’t work.
In fact, people who go on repeated diets usually wind up gaining more weight with each cycle. If just a few of the thousands of diets that have surfaced in the last 25 years were effective weight loss methods, then why would Americans today be fatter than ever before?
So how do you lose weight for good if diets don’t work? The experts tell us to think in terms of changing our eating habits, but not radically and not quickly. Plan a long, slow switch over to healthier eating, working on one change at a time, even if it takes you six months to lose 10 pounds. Simultaneously start an exercise program, gradually increasing your workout and its frequency.
Sorry, it is not a quick fix. But if you are committed, it can bring an end to the endless cycle of fad diets with rapid weight loss followed by even more rapid weight gain.