How Long Should I Stay on a Diet?

Some diets last forever. The balanced diet recommended for diabetics is a lifetime program. Others are very short term, designed to last only a few days or weeks. Fasting and the grapefruit diet are intended to take off a few pounds quickly. Staged diets combine the two. They start out with one level of restriction and go through one or more stages before reaching a long-term maintenance level. For example, the new Atkins Diet starts with a very restrictive elimination of all forms of carbohydrates. This phase is short, followed by gradual addition of carbohydrates until you reach a level of steady weight loss. Once you reach your goal weight, you add food until you establish a stable weight.

Fake Diet Pills

Are the diet pills you are taking the real thing? In February, police in New Jersey raided a company that was manufacturing and selling fake Stacker 2 diet pills, according to a report from a local ABC News affiliate. They were being sold in two local health food stores. The store owners were arrested. The pills looked like Stacker 2, but the color was slightly different.

When you purchase diet pills or supplements, do your research to choose the appropriate pill, then purchase your diet pills from a reputable outlet.

Are You Taking Any Other Medications?

Possible drug interactions are an important consideration when taking diet pills or any other medication. Be sure to review all your prescription and non-prescription drugs and dietary supplements with your doctor or pharmacist before starting to take diet pills. Be sure to include everything, including herbal products. Some medications cannot be taken together, but can be taken several hours apart. In other cases a different diet pill may be required.

While Taking This Pill, Do Not

Your doctor or pharmacist may warn you, the label may remind you, or the package insert may spell out in detail specific things to avoid while taking medication. A common caution is to not operate heavy equipment or drive until you know how the pill affects you. Others warn of unpleasant or dangerous side effects or reactions. Digestive problems such as nausea, gas, flatulence, and diarrhea are sometimes caused by not following directions indicating when to take the pills and what foods and liquids should be restricted. Taking some pills after a meal may be ineffective, while taking others before meals can cause nausea. Always read the instructions, and if you can’t remember the restrictions, make a note of them and carry it along with your pills.

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Single Food Diets

The ‘single food’ diet is an extreme diet choice. On one of these diets you eat only one food, and nothing else. The grapefruit diet, the Jello diet, and the water diet are just a few. Probably any food will work, if you stick to it. A diet consisting solely of ice cream, for instance, would make you ill because of all the fat, and you would not be able to eat much. All of these leave you seriously deficient in vitamins and minerals, even with multi-vitamin supplements. They have serious effects on your digestive tract, which was works best when provided with a variety of foods and lots of fiber. A healthy sustainable diet requires a variety of foods.

Why Diet?

Why diet at all? Why exercise, or take diet pills, or give up sweets and fats? Vanity? Romance? To please someone else? To boost your career? Because of health problems? To avoid health problems? To feel disciplined and in control? All of these are good reasons, if their effect is not extreme. Anorexia can stem from a need to feel in control. Dieting to please someone else is fine if it is an effort you have freely chosen to make, but dieting because someone is pressuring you probably won’t work. Losing weight because you believe you will be a more effective salesperson if you present a more energetic image is one thing, meeting the standards most models are held to is another, and dangerous, reason. Perhaps thinking about why you are dieting will help you choose the most appropriate approach to weight loss.