With every new year comes a fascinating new diet that will miraculously increase your energy level as you lose weight. But how effective are these diets, and how do they affect your heart? ReactDx, the wearable cardiac monitor specialists, wants you to know the effects that fad diets can have your health.
Cleansing and Detoxifying
These liquid diets come in the form of a shake that contains supplemental vitamins and nutrients. However, this is an ineffective way for your body to absorb supplements; vitamins are best delivered through whole foods. For example, eating a banana will deliver potassium in a body-friendly form more rapidly than a potassium supplement.
Liquid diets are deceiving. When you drink your meals, you feel cheated out of eating, which can lead to bingeing later. Since liquids are prone to exit the digestive system much more rapidly than solids, many nutrients don’t have a chance to be absorbed. In the short run, you will lose weight, but in the long run, the weight will return. Your body does not need “cleansing” if you already eat nutrient-dense whole foods, fiber, and leafy greens, which are much better for your heart than a supplemental shake.
Back to Basics
With the Paleo diet, you remove processed foods and focus on foods with only a few ingredients. Marbled steak for every meal, however — even if it only has one ingredient — can’t be considered a regular meal! An excess of fatty meats and butter can lead to clogged arteries and cardiovascular disease. Look carefully at labels, and choose those with the fewest ingredients. Make sure that you still have foods from the four basic food groups.
Low-Fat, Low-Carbohydrate
While cutting out all fat or all carbs from your diet may seem like an instant weight loss strategy, your body needs fat and carbs as a disposable form of energy. Your brain uses 20% of the sugar you consume every day, and when you remove that from your diet, you cannot think as clearly, and your body feels tired all the time. After your body has utilized its store of carbohydrates, it attacks muscle tissue, which also makes you feel tired. This strains your cardiovascular system. Instead of cutting out all fat and carbs, choose better foods instead: think of foods that contain “good” cholesterol, and look for leaner cuts of meat, such as chicken or turkey. And remember, low-fat, packaged foods are generally higher in sugar, so read labels carefully!
For a balanced life, choose a balanced diet full of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. The professionals at ReactDx have an array of wearable cardiac monitors to determine if your heart is healthy. Call ReactDx today at 800-23-HEART for more information on heart health.