What fills television ads these days? Has anyone noticed the increase of weight loss ads and commercials throughout the years? These include fad dieting systems such as counting calories, completely cutting out carbohydrates or fats, and other ridiculous suggestions.

A fad diet is a “reducing diet that enjoys temporary popularity.” Really, weight loss is all in one's mind. The only thing a person should be spending money on when trying to become healthy is food itself or on visiting a certified nutritionist. Everyone's thought process and relationship with food is relatively different, but one thing is that these "life changers" or "diet programs" drill unnecessary thoughts into individuals' minds.

Small day to day changes go along way. For example, substitutions: A woman wants to lose weight, and has no serious health issues that may delay the process. Her morning diet consists of one bagel with cream cheese every morning. A great substitution would be to eat only half of the bagel, with low fat cream cheese, and a fruit.

After a week or two she might replace the half of the bagel with half of a whole-grain bagel. From personal experience, when your body is not spoiled with the wrong foods for awhile, it begins to crave less of it, making the process easier. Small and slow steps are all one needs to be successful in weight loss.

Weight loss systems complicate weight loss by making it seem like there are so many different ways to lose weight, when really the answer is simple: eat clean. Many are eager to try diets that seem more appealing and promise quick results.

Potentially harmful yet popular diets include the Acai Berry Diet, Atkins Diet, Grapefruit Diet, Hollywood Diet, and the Cookie Diet (www.everydaydiet.org).

Most of the time fad diets like this are unrealistic, remove one or more of the five food groups, and only keep weight off temporarily. My opinion isn’t enough, so I’ve conducted and passed out a small sample of surveys to pass out at HFCC (300).
These numbers obviously do not speak for all individuals, but it does prove a point.

70% of females have tried to starve themselves at least once in their life, and about 80% who have tried to lose weight have become "obsessed" with counting calories at least once in their life. Of the individuals that answered "yes" to ever paying money for a weight loss system, only 20% found it to be successful.

Of the ones that found systems to be unsuccessful, Weight Watchers was also a popular program used. I believe that the media contributes to this, especially since 100% of the surveyors commented that weight loss advertisements are seen “daily” or “too often”.

Of the surveyors that tried their own methods for weight loss, about 65% were successful. Examples of responses include avoiding junk food, avoiding fast foods, eating more fruits and vegetables, or clean eating. What exactly is clean eating?

Clean eating is consuming food in its most natural state and it is not a diet (www.cleaneatingmag.com). Clean eaters avoid processed, fried, and overly sugary foods. Instead, they integrate fresh vegetables, fruits, complex carbohydrates, and lean proteins into their lifestyle. Complex carbohydrates include whole grains. When trying to lose weight, dieting doesn’t work; one must be patient for promising results and make healthy choices for life.