How To Identify Fad Diet Plans #1 - You Are Allowed To Eat Very Few Calories A Day

If you are thinking about weight loss, you know you will have to go onto a diet and do moderate exercise. The problem now is choosing a diet that will work. Most important, of course, is to be able to

identify Fad Diet Plans.

As fad diet plans can lead to many problems taking the time to make sure you do not fall for any of the fad diet plans is a good idea. To be able to do this you must be able to identify fad diet plans and steer clear from any of them.

Once you know all the characteristics of fad diet plans you will be able to choose a healthy diet that suits you. In this way you will have a far better chance of having long term success with your weight loss efforts.

How To Identify Fad Diet Plans #1:

We all know that if we are looking at How To Lose Weight Calories have to be reduced. That we cannot dispute, but in fad diet plans this is taken too far.

This is the very first dead giveaway of fad diet plans. You are only allowed to eat very little. The amount of calories you are allowed to eat on fad diet plans are way too little for your health's sake. So, if you see a diet where you are only allowed to eat very little you can be very sure it is a fad diet plan.

Eating so little will now have any good effects in the long run and you will also not be able to keep it up as you will simply be too hungry, in fact you will just about be starving.

So, do not even look at a diet where you are allowed very few calories a day. It is not safe to reduce your calorie intake per day with more than 500 calories than your body needs to maintain your weight.

To know how many you are supposed to eat to maintain your present weight you do the following math:

If you lead a mostly sedentary life you need 13 x your weight in calories to maintain your weight. So, from this you subtract the 500 calories and you know how many you need to eat each day.

If you are moderately active you take 16 x your weight and for very active you take 19 times your weight. From this you have to, once again, subtract 500.

There are easier ways than this to reduce the calories in a healthy way. Have a look at How To Lose Weight Calories for a few good ideas.

So, do not make the mistake of falling for Fad Diet Plans.

The Truth About Mothers And Their Daughters Resemblance On BMI Charts

You may be wondering whether mothers and their daughters' resemblance on BMI is a sure thing?  It's easy to assume that a daughter might take after her mother's eating habits and have a similar BMI as her mother, for many reasons.  But they might not be the reasons you'd think.  But first, let's make it clear what BMI is.

BMI or body mass index is nothing more than the measure of a person's weight in relation to her height.  A person's weight in kilograms is divided by a person's height in meters, squared (which is simply a person's height times itself—if I'm 1.5 meters tall, I would take 1.5 times 1.5).  The resulting number is her BMI.  A normal BMI is anything from 18.5 to 24.5, and 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight, with anything above that considered obese.  A BMI below 18.5 is considered underweight.  BMI is a good general measurement for most people, although very muscular people usually measure as overweight or obese because BMI doesn't distinguish between muscle weight and fat weight.

So, back to mothers and their daughters' resemblance on BMI, does it guarantee that a daughter will be overweight if her mother has a high BMI?  Will a normal weight mother raise a normal weight daughter?  Will the daughter be underweight if the mother is too skinny?  While nothing is certain 100% of the time, there are some factors that push those answers more toward a yes than a no.

Genetics do play a part in a person's tendency toward staying thin or gaining weight.  Hereditary factors like body type are impossible to change.  Tendency toward a slow metabolism can be boosted by exercise, good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle, but genetics will help determine how easy or difficult keeping a high metabolism may be for a daughter. 

The environment is a huge factor.  When a mother is overweight, for example, and she generally cooks for the family, the family eat what she eats to a large degree.  So it's easy to see why mothers and their daughters' resemblance on BMI is often very similar.  Living with a person, especially someone with the influence a mother has on a daughter, also tends to shape a person's attitudes.  So if the mother is very active, eats healthy and stays physically fit, it's more likely than a child, especially a daughter, will do the same.  Conversely, a mother who is overweight, rarely gets exercise and doesn't seem overly concerned with weight loss or health is likely to bring up her daughter with the same outlook.  In both cases, it's no surprise that their BMIs might be similar.

So not only do the attitudes about food and fitness filter down from mothers to daughters, the type of food eaten, and even the amount of food eaten, can filter down, too. Mothers and their daughters' resemblance on BMI charts is no coincidence, and only shows the need for families to be aware of their health and fitness even when children are small.