The three b’s: booze, boys and bikinis can only mean one thing ladies, it’s time for spring break! The most looked forward to time of the year is upon us and we can only think about getting sunbathe with our girls during the day while sipping on fruity cocktails, and then going out at night and partying in a tropical nightclub. Not much sounds better than that? Yes, spring break is the best time of the year, but it also places a lot of pressure on girls to get a supermodel body before break starts.
Girls are always looking for ways to lose weight and tone up. But with two weeks before break, they start to panic and look for a quick fix. There are so many fad and crash diets that everyone believes will help them to get skinny and quick!
The Atkins Diet, a low-carb diet, claims on their website that you will lose fifteen pounds in the first two weeks. Of course, this diet sounds like a dream come true. While losing the weight, people on the diet are rarely think about how depriving certain food groups it is affecting to their body.
One of my friends Danielle* has been on the Atkins Diet for about two weeks before her spring break trip to the Bahamas. While following the strict regimen, she did not lose fifteen pounds (more like seven) and complained many times about being tired, having no energy and feeling fatigued.
According to the Weight Loss Resources, the Atkins Diet may increase the chance for heart disease because of the high intake of fat. Also, the high intake of protein could cause weak bones or kidney problems.
Another popular diet college students turn to for a “get skinny quick” fix is the Special K Challenge. This diet is definitely a big challenge. True, it does have new tasty products like cracker chips, and protein shakes, but I don’t really understand the idea of two bowls of cereal as your lunch. Like the Atkins Diet, dieters aren’t getting all of the nutrition they need, and end up eating only carbs.
Yes, you can have a salad or piece of grilled chicken for dinner, but this isn’t enough to keep your diet balanced. I tried the Special-K diet and lasted about three days before I tried to eat my own arm.
According to Livestrong.com, this diet is also not the healthiest for you because of the high sugar, sodium, and trans-fats found in the cereal. My roommate who also tried this diet described it as “the diet from hell,” and said, “I’d rather be fat than have to eat this cereal one more time!”
Now we turn to the unhealthiest diet of all, which is starvation with a side of cottage cheese, raw vegetables, or fruit. Everyone knows starving yourself and not eating is extremely dangerous, and that one should never consider or do this. Regardless of the dangers, girls are still starving themselves all of the time especially around swimsuit season.
This type of “diet” makes you weak and can lead to other problems down the road. When you make it to your spring break destination, you won’t be found outside lounging by the beach, but probably inside too weak to get out of bed. An extreme radical lifestyle change is not worth fitting into your new Victoria’s Secret bathing suit.
After analyzing some of the most popular fad diets that women use today, I think we can draw one conclusion—it’s not worth the suffering. Fad diets are temporary, stupid, costly, and not all they are cracked up to be .