Each year, a new fad diet book floods the marketplace and convinces consumers that the secret answers to losing weight are wondrously stored within its pages. However, losing weight isn’t as complicated as these fad diets make it seem.
While these fad diets offer some positive nutritional tips, they also include gimmicks and rules that are detrimental to a healthy diet and lifestyle. In this infographic, Retrofit debunks America’s top fad diets, and uses them as a springboard to discuss sustainable ways of eating well, without the hokey rules and regulations. Retrofit works. Diets don’t. Retrofit is not a diet.
The infographic highlights some of the leading commercial diet programs and takes a close look at the gimmicks that can be detrimental to a healthy diet and lifestyle. The Retrofit expert team of registered dietitians and weight loss coaches debunks America’s top fad diets, and uses these diets as a springboard to discuss sustainable ways of eating well, without hokey rules and false promises.
“As the obesity epidemic persists, the time has come to end the pursuit of the ‘ideal’ diet for weight loss and disease prevention,” the JAMA article states, adding that the public has been exposed to mixed messages.
“Whichever diet one chooses to lose weight, it must be healthy, balanced, practical, and sustainable. Any other diet will be short-lived,” said nationally-renowned Retrofit Medical Advisory Board Member Dr. Robert F. Kushner, who specializes in the treatment of obese and overweight patients at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
“Restrictive diets simply do not work. People with forced dietary limitations eventually break down and eat whatever foods were prohibited,” said Retrofit Lead Registered Dietitian Amy Margulies. “To lose weight, one must find the right balance of the calories in and the calories out. It is simply a calculation of how many calories you are consuming versus how many you are burning to lose weight.
Margulies points out that diets are for the short term. Ninety-five percent of dieters re-gain the weight they originally lost. “Many people do not have a problem losing weight, but most people do have a problem keeping it off because they don’t change their behavior,” she said.
Retrofit client Michele Bukowski said she is confident that she has successfully changed her nutrition habits for life. She recently lost more than 20 pounds (more than 10% of her body weight), on the innovative 12-month Retrofit program, which includes wireless monitoring of a client’s weight, activity and sleep, as well as Private Lessons via Skype videoconferencing with a registered dietitian, exercise physiologist, and behavior coach.
“I feel confident that this lifestyle change and weight loss is sustainable. I never felt like I went ‘on’ a diet, so I don’t feel that I am going ‘off’ of one. I don’t count calories or worry about my eating habits now. I know what to do,” she said.
Each year, new fad diet books flood the marketplace and attempt to convince Americans that the secret answers to losing weight are wondrously stored within its pages. However, losing weight isn’t as complicated as these fad diets make it seem. Retrofit experts debunk the myths about such diets as The Dukan Diet, The Alkaline Diet, and The Paleo Diet.
“Many theories have been proposed, but we now have the final ruling on what may be the cure to obesity,” said Retrofit RD Lara Field. “Success can only come with long-term weight loss plans; there is no quick-fix.”
Retrofit clients who completed a 12-month weight loss program lost an average of 19.1 pounds, or 8.3% of their starting body weight, through combined use of activity tracking and weight monitoring, according to a recently released company report.
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