Merry go round of diets

The year 2017 had many diet trends, which the millennials followed with zeal. The new year is upon us and let’s have a look at what they are all about. Usher in 2018 with a smart eating plan

Keto: This popular diet belongs to ‘high protein, high fat diet’, where one is encouraged to derive proteins from cheese or red meat and fat from saturated fats, which stimulate and mobilise fat hormones.

Downfall: Excess protein damages kidneys, can cause gout, elevates pressures and can lead to forming of highly toxic ketones causing ketosis. Cutting out carbohydrates can cause constipation as well as a loss of powerful antioxidants lowering immunity. Osteoporosis is caused due to increasing protein levels and cardiovascular diseases can be contracted if there is excess fat in the body. To restrict food groups especially grains leads to vitamin deficiency.

Meal replacement product: Found in forms of a drink or a nutritional bar, they are designed to replace a regular meal. Most products have added minerals and vitamins and are low in kilojoules.

Downfall: Side effects of some meal replacement products include fatigue, irritability nausea, constipation, headaches, dizziness, hair loss, dry skin and breath. In a state of near starvation, which occurs with some meal replacement products, the body is enduring a significant degree of stress.

Glycematic index: This measures how rapidly your body breaks down the carbohydrates in food into simple sugar glucose and how quickly this glucose gets into your bloodstream, the faster the rise in your blood sugar and the faster insulin is secreted to drive this excess glucose into storage sites in the muscle and liver. The concept of the glycemic index only became well known during the past decade.

Downfall: It is very difficult to constantly think of the glycemic index of food. In this process we can cut down important food groups. It is also very confusing as it is not only glycemic index but glycemic load also. So a carrot can be high in glycemic index but low in glycemic load.

Vegan diet: Veganism has taken the world by storm as more and more people are converting to it. A vegan diet is a plant based diet revolving around fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds. The corner stone of this diet is that it avoids all kinds of dairy products made from cows or any other animal’s milk and all animal protein including eggs.

Downfall: Just because one is vegan doesn’t mean that they are healthy. While this diet is on surface extremely healthy for the most part, it does not necessarily translate into being ideal. One lands up eating a lot of sugar and fried savouries, not necessary cooked in healthy fats. Vegans land up with a Vitamin B-12 deficiency, which causes nerve pain, mood swings, depression and fatigue.

Intermediate fasting diet: This diet is essentially when you are given eight hours of your 24 hour day time period to eat all the food that you can and want. In the balance 16 hours of the day you can only sip on water.

Downfall: The intermediate fasting makes one feel weak, dizzy, giddy and lowers both your salt and sugar levels. Since there is no restriction on when to choose our eight hours, people tend to take whacky timings and this makes you go against the circadian rhythm which is your body’s biological clock of waking, sleeping and eating.