By: John Dow
Submitted: 2008-09-13 07:40:30 | Word Count: 555
When I first starting doing a little research on diets last year I was absolutely amazed at both the number of popular diets, and the conflicting information about many. One thing I quickly learned to do was consider the review’s bias.
Every diet out there has their fan club and many times, a few folks that hate it. It’s similar to cars, many people love their car and hate some others. Often it’s more a matter of personal opinion on something as subjective as a diet plan or cars.
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Of course you do have your experts in any given field of endeavor. Through training or experience someone gains knowledge and respect from their peers in specific areas. Or maybe due to their professional role, for instance a doctor’s opinions may be more respected in nutrition and diet areas rather than a mechanic.
The tough part of reading any review is to try and separate the opinion from the facts. And when you get into an area like diets, there are competing and confusing opinions on just about every one.
Part of the problem with any review of a diet plan is that there are so many variables with each person that there is no absolute for everyone. Since we all have different body types, lifestyles, and goals each person can respond differently to any diet plan.
What I learned after a little trial and error is that it’s important to consider your particular lifestyle, goals, and current condition when choosing the right diet for you. If you read the reviews and they all state that the first two weeks involve heavy exercise and you can’t exercise (due to other physical issues), that’s not a good diet for you.
· Many of the more popular diets have a very severe first period (up to two weeks) and will definitely defeat all but the most dedicated. That’s because the diet wants to “shock” or change the way your body burns fat. Some reviews mention this but not many.
· Some diets also rely on providing diuretic food (foods that increase urination) to make you flush water from your system. Why, because water is heavy and you can see some quick weight loss if you start dumping the water your body carries around. Another often overlooked area for most reviewers.
· One aspect of any review is that the person writing the review should have personal experience with the diet. If they haven’t personally tried it, they should at least have some kind of information from people who have. That’s often missing in many diet reviews.
Always consider the source when reading any review, regardless of subject. Weight loss is a very personal area since we all have different bodies and current conditions. Watch out for the “Fad Diets”, many can be worthless and even harmful.
By the way, salt is not bad for you. In fact you need salt to survive. The problem is that all the processed foods that we often eat contain so much sodium (look at the label – a can of soup can be 36 sodium or more) that we consume way too much. Start reading the labels and start choosing the items with less sodium.
Then you can add a grain of salt (or more) to anything!
