Every change in our meal plan, especially when reducing the daily nutrition and calorie intake, leads to weight loss in some degree. However, this is not the main criteria for the quality of the diet. The fast weight loss is basically without long term effect, and very often - jeopardy for your health.

What are the main traps in the miraculous diets?

Be aware of drugs:

Diuretics:
Diuretics increase the excretion of water, salt and potassium. They don't have effect on weight loss, because they don't interfere with fat metabolism, they just suck out the water from your body. Taken without medical control they can lead to muscle weakness, cardiac pain, dehydration and mineral disturbances, sometimes even osteoporosis.


Laxatives:
They simply reduce the time which food needs to pass through your GI tract, especially the colon. This doesn't leads to weight loss, because nutrients are absorbed in small intestine, before they reach the colon. A laxative leads to increased excretion of water and minerals and may damage the mucous of the intestines.
Laxatives can be effective only if they have fat binding effect. Although not laxative, such medication is Proactol.

Thyroid extracts:
They are extracts, which mimic the action of thyroid hormones. They reduce the muscle mass, but not the fats. Insomnia and palpitations are some of the most common side effects - the same as you are having thyroiditis.
For efficient weight loss, you need to lose fats, not muscles.

Protein supplements:
They can lead to real weight loss, because they lower the appetite and burn the fats, without losing muscles. In order to be efficient you should combine them with exercising. Unfortunately, protein supplements may be very harmful for kidneys, especially if you have reduced kidney function. Severe constipation is another very unpleasant complication.

Herbs and extracts:
Most are simply inefficient. This is because they are sold without any clinical research is done in order to obtain evidence for their effectiveness. Still there are some which can be very efficient, and they are either researched at the moment or are proved to be effective and are already on the market. Hoodia and Proactol are examples.


Be aware of sensational diets:

Another trap for the quick weight loss candidates are "healing hunger", Atkins, Scarsdale, The Zone, Blood types, Montiniak etc. Really, they can be very effective for short term dieting, but most are simply dangerous for your health or lack any scientific proof for their action (like blood types diet).

Remember that the faster effect means short-term results.
When you alternate periods of dieting and promiscuously eating, weight loss is getting harder to achieve and the weight gain after the diet is even more.
The only way for fast and sustainable weight loss is combination of exercises, reasonable dieting and weight loss pills (sometimes you just need some supplements). When the desired weight is achieved, you need to change your eating habits for life. This doesn't mean you have to hunger all your life - the volume of food must satisfy your hunger, and its composition must meet your body needs. Of course, one hardly can achieve this "reform" in eating habits and efforts should be put, and sometimes even some help (i.e appetite suppressants) is desirable.