RIVERVIEW, N.B. – Now into the second week of 2015, there are many people trying to stick to a New Years resolution to lose weight.
After hitting menopause a few years ago and gaining 30 pounds, Riverview’s Shelley Butler admits she lost the motivation.
“I just thought, ‘Well I am at this stage in my life and heading into my fifties,'” she said. “I thought this is just how it’s going to be. I have zero motivation.”
But now she’s charging into 2015 determined to get healthy.
But nutritionist Jason Capson said it’s a journey she should take with caution.
“Fad diets can affect your health in a lot of negative ways,” he said.
Capson said there are essentially five different categories of fad diets that people should avoid.
The first: any diet that excludes a food group, like grains and carbohydrates which has been coined as the popular paleo or “caveman” diet.
“When you are eliminating nutrients from your body, disease can come into play. Your body needs carbs and fats and nutrients and proteins,” he said.
Including those that replaces foods with supplements and shakes.
“You’ve lost 8-10 pounds whatever it is and you introduce calories again and you start to gain weight,” he said.
Capson advises to avoid any diet that requires fasting or a very low-calorie intake or those that focus on ‘super foods.’
“There is no such thing as a miracle food or a miracle pill or miracle diet. It’s about sustainability and, unfortunately, discipline,” he said.
And popular detox cleanses are not proven to lead to any long-term weight loss, either.
“As soon as you introduce food again guess what happens? You balloon up and get all kinds of side effects and things like that too.”
“I think that is what people are looking for. They want the pill that is going to make it easy.”
Butler is just a few weeks into her journey and discovering it isn’t easy at all. But she says it’s worth it.
“I am feeling the best I have ever felt and I think I feel better than I did in my thirties,” she said.
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