Fad diets are bad for your mental health

We’ve all done a diet or ten in our lifetime. Fad diets specifically are a tempting, quick fix for weight loss which is something we (“we” being western culture) have been trained to desire; however, they can be pretty detrimental to our physical and mental health if they’re frequently used. 

Fad diets are known for recommending nutritionally deficient foods or only eating one kind of nutrient dense food for a period of time all while promising fast weight loss and nonsensical health improvements. Think of things that read, ‘lose 10 pounds in one week by only eating eggs ’ and other silly claims that have little or skewed scientific evidence for working (like obviously eating 500 calories a day will get you to lose weight but you’re also hurting yourself).

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When I use ‘fad diet’ I often refer to anything that will cause you to restrict nutrients for no other reason than weight loss which we should all know by now is the least effective motivator for getting healthy. Speaking of weight loss… fad diets can actually hinder weight loss because when your body is deprived of calories (aka the energy you need to live) it goes into a ‘starvation mode’ and holds on to the body fat you have in case it never gets fed again. Another way it hinders weight loss is that they aren’t a sustainable way to lose weight so you will eventually end up eating more later and go into a binge-diet cycle that is even worse for your health and often causes you to gain back even more weight than you originally lost.

Let’s get a few things straight before we dive in! I believe that your diet is incredibly important for how you feel and I DO think that people should learn about how beneficial food can be for your body and mind i.e. food as medicine. I DO NOT believe that this includes constant restriction (obviously depending on your medical background i.e. autoimmune, diabetes etc.). I am a big advocate for the 80/20 approach where you eat healthy 80% of the time and indulge 20% of the time but to get there you need to learn about your own body and it’s needs {more on this later}. 

How It Affects Mental health
Fad diets often restrict many nutrients from entering your body or they overload them with one specific nutrient e.g. protein only diet. {As we all know balance is the key to living a healthy life and getting to our natural weight.} When you restrict nutrients you aren’t feeding the good bacteria in your gut that help keep the bad bacteria from overrunning your body. This can cause digestive issues, fatigue, skin problems and can even contribute to dementia. An imbalance in gut bacteria can also cause significant issues with how your brain responds to stress as well as decrease our levels of serotonin and dopamine which will quickly cause mood disorders such as depression. Learn more in this post!

Our gut and our brain need a diverse set of nutrients to function properly which means no more restricting fruits and vegetables to cut down on your carb intake or only eating grapefruits for a week in hopes to lose 20 lbs. Both will cause you to starve your brain and gut of what it needs. Even though the grapefruits have nutritional value, you're overloading your body with one group of nutrients which means you’re starving it of all the others. 

Since gut health is so important in supporting our mental health, it makes sense fad diets that are extremely restrictive aren’t so beneficial in keeping us feeling energized, happy and clear headed. 

If you want to read more about how your gut health is directly linked to your mental health (i.e. anxiety and depression) read my blog post “Does Gut Health Affect Mental Health?”


Sometimes You Need a Special Diet
There is definitely a time and a place for specific diet approaches that eliminate groups of foods. A great example of this was when my sister was having difficulty getting pregnant due to increased inflammation that appeared to be linked to an autoimmune issue. The only way to find out what was affecting her was to go on an elimination diet. This proved extremely helpful in having her identify what foods were causing inflammation in her body which in turn allowed her to have her baby girl, get rid of her chronic hives and lose nearly 20 lbs of weight gain that was mostly inflammation! She’s also never been more calm, her body is reacting to stress much more appropriately now. I’ve seen this a countless number of times in others and myself and it’s insane what our diets can do and how food really is medicine. 

Changing your diet in an appropriate manner is what makes all the difference. Even when my sister was on an elimination diet she was still getting ample amounts of nutrients from diverse sources. Now that she has reset her health, in a sense, she is able to eat more intuitively (80/20 balance). She listens to her body, knows when she’s consumed too much of a certain food and what foods she needs to calm her body back down and ultimately she’s maintained a healthy weight with ease without working out endlessly or starving herself to death. 


Want to learn more about the impact your gut health has on your mental health? Read this post!


If you want to learn more about how to improve your gut health with a whole bunch of diverse nutrient dense foods make sure you first find out if your gut is healthy or not! This is step one! You can find out if your gut is healthy or not by taking this free quiz!

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