Fad Diets
Are these diets healthy?
Shed unwanted weight by eating meats and desserts? Sign me up! Lose 10 pounds in a weekend by drinking a miracle juice? Count me in! If you’re struggling to lose weight, some of the fad diets out there might sound like dreams come true. So you head out and buy diet books, food scales and special foods in the hopes of lightening up for good..
Unfortunately, most diets that sound too good to be true really are. They may be nutritionally unsound, cause you to lose only water weight, or be impossible to follow for the long term. We spoke with nutritionists to tell you which diets will help you lose weight and which ones will only lighten your wallet.
The Atkins diet
Who wouldn’t love this diet? You can eat as much fat and protein as you like. Insulin causes the body to store fat, so carbs, which increase the insulin levels in the body, are limited. This causes a condition called ketosis, where the body burns fat and protein instead of sugar to supply energy.
What the pros say
Insulin enables our cells to use glucose for energy. It’s true that insulin helps the body store fat so many diets these days blame this hormone for our weight problems. However, condemning insulin and banning carbs is based on false science. One mistaken theory is that only carbs stimulate insulin production, while in fact all foods, whether pure sugar or lean meats, do this. Another incorrect theory is that insulin stores fat only when high-carb foods are eaten. The bottom line is that fat will be stored any time too much food is eaten, no matter what the source. If you eat more calories than your body burns, whether those calories come from carbs, protein or fat, you will gain weight.
As for ketosis, “This is a state your body goes into when you’re ill or semi-starving,” says Katherine Tallmadge, R.D., M.A., author of Diet Simple. “It will cause you to lose weight fast, but half of that weight will be muscle and water.”
Other caveats: Cutting carbs can decrease brain function, and it lowers the body’s ability to absorb calcium after six weeks. Eating excessive amounts of fat and protein may result in cancer, kidney stones and heart disease. “There are all kinds of dangers,” Tallmadge says. “It’s not a healthy way to lose weight.”
The Cabbage Soup diet
A soup that burns calories—what a discovery! The Cabbage Soup diet promises to help you shed 10 to 15 pounds in a week by eating strict combination’s of food plus the wondrous cabbage soup. For example, on day one you can eat only fruits (except banana) and all the cabbage soup you want. On day two, you eat all the veggies you like, a baked potato with butter for dinner, plus (of course) the cabbage soup. On day five you eat 10 to 20 ounces of beef, up to six tomatoes, and—guess what?—cabbage soup.
What the pros say
“There’s no real rhyme or reason to this diet,” says Joy Bauer, M.S., R.D., C.D.N., author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Total Nutrition and The 90/10 Weight Loss Plan. “The soup is great; there’s nothing wrong with the soup at all. But the diet itself is completely random.” Bauer theorizes that the diet is fun for people to follow, but there’s no sense behind the strange food combos.
Will you lose weight? Maybe, but that’s because by restricting yourself to the bizarre combination’s of foods, you’re actually controlling your calorie intake. The downside is that this diet is nearly impossible to maintain in the long run.
And eating too much cabbage can also bollix up your digestive system. As we know, cabbage can cause gas. But Bauer also tells of a dieter who called her office, desperate because he hadn’t had a bowel movement in 13 days. After asking some questions, Bauer discovered that he had been following the cabbage soup diet the whole time.
The Scarsdale diet
One of the classic fad diets, the Scarsdale diet started decades ago and is still around today. Instead of counting calories or using portion control, you eat a low-carb diet for seven to 14 days. Snacking is not allowed, and meals consist of fruits, veggies and lean meats. The upside is that since there is no portion control, you can eat as much as you like.
What the pros say
The Scarsdale is a semi-low-carb diet. It does promote salads and lean meats, which is a good point. The diet is low in calories, which means you can’t stay on it for very long. “You’ll lose weight quickly, but the fat loss is largely water,” says Melanie Polk, R.D., director of nutrition education at the American Institute for Cancer Research. The diet is also difficult to follow because there isn’t a lot of variety or flexibility. According to Polk, any diet that deemphasizes carbs tends to be high in saturated fat, which can lead to heart disease.
The Hollywood 48-Hour Miracle Diet
You’ve probably seen the ad in magazines—drink nothing but this miracle juice for two days and say good-bye to fat. The fruits, vegetables, vitamins, minerals, essential oils and antioxidants in the juice cleanse your digestive system and activate your body’s internal “fat-burning furnace.”
What the pros say
“This is ridiculous,” Bauer says. “Basically what you’re doing is fasting.” Polk agrees that this diet is bogus. “When you’re talking about losing that much weight in a short time, you’re talking water loss,” Polk says. Sure, you’ll see a drop on the scale as you lose water, but the weight will come right back again as soon as you go off the diet.
In addition, starving yourself even for a day can make it harder for you to lose weight in the long run. Your body is good at holding onto whatever fat you have, even if you’re starving yourself, by slowing down its systems like the cardiovascular system, the nervous system and the gastrointestinal system. This means you’re burning fewer calories, and your body needs fewer calories to get by. Even a one-day fast can have a negative effect. According to Tallmadge, your metabolism can drop within 24 to 48 hours.
Say you have a reunion in two days and you’re desperate to fit into that little black dress. “You don’t need to do this Hollywood diet,” Bauer says. “It’s the same as drinking two glasses of orange juice and popping a multivitamin and drinking a lot of water throughout the day.” On the other hand, whichever way you choose to starve yourself before an event, you’ll probably end up being so irritable and achy come D-day that the fast won’t be worth it.
Sugar Busters
Once again, insulin is the bad guy, causing our bodies to store more fat. Foods that rank high on the glycemic index—a measure of how much your blood sugar increases in the two or three hours after eating a certain food—should be avoided, such as white bread, pasta and other low-fiber carbs.
What the pros say
Although the theory that insulin makes you fat is false, this diet is a good one. Sugar Busters eliminates “white foods” such as sugar, white bread and cake and pushes brown rice, wheat berries, bulgur, whole-wheat bread and other high-fiber carbs. However, you can still gain weight by following this diet if you don’t exercise portion control, Bauer says.
The Zone diet
According to this diet, the zone for max calorie burning is 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent protein and 30 percent fat. The diet’s author claims that carbs make us fat because most people are insulin resistant. Carbs increase insulin production, which cause the body to store more fat.
What the pros say
The Zone is a more sensible version of Atkins. The plan is actually low in calories, which is why you lose weight. There’s no magic in the percentages of carbs, fat and protein that results in fat loss. “This diet is fine,” Bauer says. However, it can be difficult to stay in the “zone” for long periods of time.
The Grapefruit Diet
This diet has been floating around for years. The diet allows you to eat pretty much any fatty, protein-rich foods you like, as long as you eat a half of a grapefruit with your meal. The grapefruit supposedly acts as a catalyst that jumpstarts the fat-burning process. The diet allows double or even triple servings of meats plus salads with any kind of salad dressing, but eliminates starches and sugars.
What the pros say
The Grapefruit Diet, although nutritionally insufficient, won’t kill you if you try it for a week or two. But even if you manage to lose any weight, which is unlikely, as soon as you return to your old eating habits the pounds will fly back on.
Food combining
Food combining is a complicated set of rules that supposedly allows food to move through your body as efficiently as possible. According to the proponents of this diet, food that is allowed to stagnate in your body results in weight gain and other health problems.
On this diet, you can eat nothing but fruit until noon. Starches must be kept separate from proteins so no turkey sandwiches or meat and potatoes for you. You must allow two to three hours between a starch and a protein meal. Fruits must be kept separate from all other food groups. Dairy with starch meals is a no-no. The list goes on and on, telling the dieter what foods may be eaten with what other foods, and how long you must wait between certain types of meals.
What the pros say
“There’s no scientific evidence that food combining enhances fat loss, or that waiting three hours before switching from a protein to a carbohydrate meal makes any difference whatsoever,” Polk says. Our bodies are made to be able to handle a combination of foods. By restricting which foods can be eaten in which combination’s, the dieter’s food choices are limited, which is what results in fat loss—not the combining itself. “It’s not dangerous,” Bauer says. “It’s just hokey.”
This is one of the hardest diets to follow for the long term, and it’s socially restrictive. Imagine trying to separate fruits, starches and proteins at a restaurant or a party!
Will that diet work? Ask yourself these questions:
- Does the diet promise more than it can deliver? Words like “wonder,” “miracle” and “breakthrough” are red flags, as are promises of huge losses over a short period of time.
- Is there any research to support the diet? Research should be done by an independent researcher and ideally published in a peer-reviewed journal.
- Is this a diet you can sustain for a lifetime? If it’s very restrictive or requires bizarre food combination’s, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to stick to it.
- Does the diet eliminate a particular food group? If so, steer clear. All food groups are necessary for a nutritionally adequate diet.
- Does the diet emphasize a particular “wonder food?” There is no one food that will magically cause you to lose weight.
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