The word “diet” describes the food and eating habits someone has. People have always had different diets depending on where they live and what their goals are. Many people just eat whatever they want and don’t pay attention to it. A diet is just strictly what and how people eat. People normally go on different diets because they have a goal in mind. Some may have the goal of losing or gaining weight. Some people might be on a different diet to improve their health. The reasons for going on diets are endless. The most common reason people normally go on diets is to lose weight. There are always ads in magazines/Newspapers that always say “lose 10 pounds in 3 days!” or “keep weight off with this special drink” The truth is, none of these are sustainable and reliable. Some of the ads are straight-up lies!

The reason people fall for the lies of these fad diets is that they act fast. Normally the diets make a big difference because the medicine is either reducing their appetite or it’s causing them to lose water weight. Also, some even work as a laxative and help people lose weight because of the waste in their system. All of these “diets” are just quick-fixing ways to lose weight that will inevitably come back in a few days. Weight fluctuates significantly between days for multiple reasons. So the “diets” could just be placebo diets and trick the victim of the fraud to believe their weight fluctuations were due to the diet. 

I now want to touch on the more effective diets that still I believe are stupid. Over the course of my journey of fitness, I have tried several different diets: I tried slim fast, keto, intermittent fasting, soylent, trim healthy mama, fast metabolism, water fast, etc. All of these diets proved to be successful in helping me lose weight however, they’re overly complicated. All of these diets have people cutting out certain food groups and entire food categories. For humans to survive effectively we need every single food group. Keto, for example, cuts carbs out completely. It makes it so the body solely relies on fat for energy instead of carbs. This can help for the short term but eventually, the person eating the diet will screw up and might have too many carbs. They will then have to enter ketosis over the next several weeks. It takes so much time and effort to do keto that I feel like it takes away the joy of life.

The real reason any diet to ever exist helped people lose weight is that it created a calorie deficit for the individual. The only way to lose weight is to eat less than you expend. That is the reason any diet has ever worked. People contribute weight gain and weight loss to several different things however, the arguments may have some credibility due to chemical balances in the body however, it still boils down to the expenditure of calories. So If your goal is to lose weight eat in a calorie deficit. If your goal is to gain weight eat in a calorie surplus. At the end of the day, everyone has control of their own diet: What’s your goal?