Our diet dictates how our body works. By changing what you eat, you can change the way you look and how your body uses energy. You can lose weight, gain muscle mass, and decrease the risk of developing certain health issues. If you are an athlete, then you’ll change your diet to fit your goals. On the other side, your doctor may suggest a diet to prevent medical conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure. Most diets work by limiting or eliminating one or more foods groups. Here are some pros and cons of dieting:

Pros

1. Fast Results: Whenever you make a big change to your eating habits, you’ll see changes. Changes may occur more suddenly with a calorie deficient diet. Your body will adapt and start using its stores of fat to burn energy. You have to be careful not to restrict too many calories, or else you’ll start to burn muscle mass as well.
2. Control Factor: If you see something that you want to change about yourself, healthy dieting can give you a sense of control over your reality. By altering what you eat, you can control the way that you look and feel. You don’t have to depend on anyone else in this effort. It’s one area of your life that you can have absolute control over.
3. More Products To Choose From: Manufacturers are making more products that complement current diet trends. There are ready made meals that work with paleo, keto, and whole30 diet plans. You can easily support diets with the right snacks, frozen foods, and condiments.

Cons

1. Not Sustainable: Most diets remove or dramatically limit a specific food group. Removing an entire food group is difficult to do. It takes a great deal of effort and planning to still get enough calories to live. It will eventually impact your social life with restaurants, dinner parties, and cooking for the family. The problem with fad diets is that at some point, they become too difficult to maintain over a long period of time.
2. Impacts on Health: Restricting a food group can leave your body deficient in certain vitamins and minerals, which will impact your overall health. Your body is made for digesting all types of foods, from meat, to vegetables, and fruits. Supplements are ok, but it’s always better to get your nutrients from the natural source.
3. Time Consuming: When you stop eating a group of foods, you’ll need to plan out every meal. If you restrict carbs, then you’ll need to eat a great deal more in order to take in enough calories to stay healthy. You’ll spend more time researching foods, grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning.

Diets are great for changing the way that we see and understand our relationship with food. It can help us try new foods and find new things that we enjoy. At the same time, a highly restrictive diets makes meeting friends at restaurants difficult. If your diet is doctor suggested, take their suggestion seriously. Do what you can to make yourself successful in the new diet change. Whatever diet you’re on, make sure to leave some room for the occasional treat without beating yourself up.