Everyone seems to be in the pursuit of health and Fitness these days. While there is good advice aplenty, there is also bad advice galore. If you don’t separate the good from the bad and follow everything blindly, then not only will your fitness goals go for a toss, but you may also affect your health.

If you want good health and fitness, it’s important to eat and sleep well, follow a fitness routine, and consult a doctor if you suffer from any pre-existing conditions. But most importantly, it is essential to stay away from the following fitness fads that have no proven health benefit.

Supplements

Did you know that health supplements rarely go through rigorous testing like medicines because they are considered ‘natural’? There’s little scope of knowing exactly what goes into preparing these supplements, and if they really live up to the claims they make.

Supplements aren’t completely natural either. They frequently contain synthetic ingredients, and while they are not harmful or poisonous, they take a long time to be absorbed by the body. If a person is healthy and has a balanced diet, there’s no need to take a supplement. In the case of a vitamin deficiency, one must show a doctor and take a multivitamin. Otherwise, health supplements have no proven benefit and should be taken sparingly.

Juice cleanse

Detoxing is ideally done to flush out toxins from the body. But what exactly are toxins? They are naturally occurring poisons in the body with their own purpose in the system. Ditching food and surviving on juice isn’t going to flush out toxins from the body; rather, it’s going to make the person weak, light-headed, and sick.

The best way to detox your system is to avoid junk food and drink lots of water. Reduced stress, a balanced diet, and proper exercise are healthy ways to boost your system, and much better than surviving on just juice.

Detox Teas

Ever heard anyone successfully losing weight by drinking tea? Probably not. If it sounds too good to be true, then it most likely is. Products claiming to be detox tea contain either diuretics or laxatives, making you pass urine or bowels more than necessary. It risks damaging your system and making you ill, without you losing any weight.

The best-and only-way to lose weight is by combining a healthy diet and exercise. Anyone who offers a miracle solution is probably not true.

Avoiding gluten

It’s been a fad for a few years now. No matter where you look, there’s claim of being Gluten free. Gluten free bread, gluten free chocolate, gluten free brownies. People mistake gluten free things for healthy food. The truth is, gluten free food doesn’t taste all that good, and it makes companies add a bunch of other unhealthy ingredients to make them taste better.

Unless you’re gluten intolerant or have celiac disease, there’s no need to avoid gluten. Eat healthy food, not gluten free.

Waist trainers

These are like a corset for the Waist. If you wear them for a certain time, your waist would look slimmer. Once you take it off, your body would return to its normal shape. Even if you wore your waist trainers all the time, you wouldn’t get your waist to look slimmer beyond a certain point. It goes to prove how pointless waist trainers are.

If you want to get a slimmer waist, there’s no alternative to exercise. Strength training helps develop strong muscles without the pain and suffocation of corsets.