10 Fad Diets that do More Harm than Good
Fad diets have been all the rage for decades, enticing people with doctor-approved meal plans, success stories and guarantees to help you lose weight quickly. Even with the fancy marketing, scientific support and desirable eating plans, fad diets don’t stick around long for a reason. Whether they cause health problems, are impossible to follow or simply don’t work, fad diets are often looked down upon by diet experts and physicians who believe a well-balanced diet is the only way to go. Here are 10 fad diets that do more harm than good:
- Sugar Busters! Diet
Sugar Busters! is a fad diet that involves cutting out certain foods that contain refined sugar or too much sugar from your diet. The diet claims to lower your cholesterol, increase energy and treat diabetes. Experts consider Sugar Busters! a controversial and misleading diet because of its claim to cause insulin resistance and control certain types of diabetes-related problems. The diet also promotes high-protein intake, which experts say could increase calcium excretion and result in kidney and liver damage, fatigue and irritability. - Eat Right for Your Blood Type Diet
The Eat Right for Your Blood Type Diet suggests people eat certain foods and avoid others based on their individual blood type. While the overall diet recommends healthy food and exercise choices, it does not take into account individuals’ dietary needs and tastes. Diet experts have criticized this diet because of its lack of scientific background and its claims that there’s a connection between blood types and specific diseases. This blood type diet may sound more scientific than others, but the lack of evidential support and dietary limitations could do more harm than good. - The Atkins Diet
The Atkins diet is one of the most popular and controversial diets of all time. Atkins claims that by eating more protein and fat, while restricting carbohydrates, people will lose weight by burning stored body fat through a process called ketosis. One of the selling points of the Atkins diet is the fact that you can eat lots of delicious, rich foods like cheese, bacon, steak, eggs and other high-protein foods that are banned from most diets. While many have experienced weight loss and great success with Atkins, diet experts worry about the dangers of high-fat and high-protein intake that could result in a temporary spike in cholesterol levels and promote heart disease. Atkins has also raised concerns about the safety of restricting carbs, which are needed for healthy functioning and normal metabolic activity. The Atkins diet is still a controversial weight loss plan that experts worry may cause more harm than good. - Protein Power Diet
Protein Power is a high-protein and low-carb diet that promises weight loss in weeks. The Protein Power diet focuses on eating meats, dairy and some fruits and vegetables you won’t see on other low-carb diets. Like Atkins, Protein Power works by putting the dieter in a state of ketosis, meaning you lose fat without actually having to burn it off. Experts worry that ketosis can be dangerous if fluid intake isn’t doubled. Because people on the protein power diet tend to lose weight quickly it can be seen as a fad diet and one that will be hard to keep up with when normal foods are reintroduced. Also, this eating plan causes concerns because people may experience nutritional deficiencies and spiked weight gain when they stop the diet. - The Fast Food Diet
The Fast Food diet may sound like a dream come true, but this diet doesn’t include French fries, sugared sodas, fried chicken or many of the greasy foods you’d expect. Instead, the fast food diet encourages dieters on the go to choose healthy meals and snacks, like diet sodas, seltzer with lemon, grilled chicken sandwiches, fruit parfaits, chili, baked potatoes and salads. Condiments like mayonnaise, ranch dressing and special sauces should be forgone or replaced by lighter alternatives. If you follow the recommended food and beverage choices, dieters should only be consuming about 1,500 calories a day, in addition to walking a mile per day. The fast food diet can be a bit misleading because people think they can eat anything they want, and may be tempted to choose an unhealthy meal when they pull up to the drive thru. Experts also believe that people following this diet cannot get the daily recommended amount of foods, like vegetables and fruit servings from fast food restaurants alone. - The 3-Day Diet
The 3-day diet is a fad diet that has proven to cause rapid weight loss, but has not proven to be effective, healthy or safe. The 3-day diet promises dieters to lose up to 10 pounds in three days if you follow the specific food regimen that consists of low-calorie meals. After three days, you can eat normally for four to five days and return to 3-day diet again. Experts strongly discount the health benefit claims that the diet causes a unique metabolic response and immediate fat burning, because exercise is not recommended in the plan, nor is there scientific proof to back these results. Instead, a crash diet like this will usually cause spiked weight gain when you return to normal eating and possible nutrition deficiencies. - Cabbage Soup Diet
The cabbage soup diet is an infamous crash diet that claims to help patients lose 10 to 17 pounds in seven days. According to the diet, cabbage soup is supposedly a fat-burning soup and should be eaten mostly with fruits and vegetable for optimal results. Experts do not like this diet for many reasons. First, the cabbage soup diet overemphasizes one food and completely ignores the idea of eating a balanced diet of all food groups. Second, the cabbage soup diet is down-right boring and repetitive, which takes the joy out of eating and makes it difficult to keep up for a long period of time. Experts also say that the cabbage soup diet can cause negative side effects, such as physical discomfort from gas and stomach aches, nutritional deficiencies, fatigue and disappointment when your weight plateaus. - Raw Food Diet
Raw food diets mainly consist of eating uncooked, unprocessed plant foods, with vegetables and fruits making up 75 percent of the diet. Most followers of this diet are known as raw foodists and raw food vegans, who don’t eat animal products or only eat raw eggs and cheese from raw or unpasteurized milk. Unlike most diets, the raw food diet is not designed to be a weight loss plan, but it claims that you’ll achieve a leaner body, clearer skin and more energy. Since the raw food diet does not advocate cooking foods because high heat strips the food of essential vitamins and enzymes, raw foodists use dehydrators for texture and taste. However, this is one of the big reasons experts criticize the raw food diets. Dehydrators use heat but not high enough temperatures to kill dangerous food-borne bacteria, which can cause illness. Experts have also found that people who ate a raw food diet had low cholesterol and triglycerides, as well as vitamin B12 deficiency, which is found in animal products and is important for nerve and red blood cell development. There are also concerns of low bone mass because of rapid weight loss in the beginning of the diet. - The Hallelujah Diet
The Hallelujah Diet is a low-calorie, vegan and faith-based diet program that suggests eating 85 percent raw organic foods and 15 percent cooked foods for optimal weight loss and nourishment. The diet emphasizes juicing vegetables and plant foods to increase the absorption of nutrients, but experts discount this theory and say juicing reduces the fiber content of foods. Also, the Hallelujah Diet has a long list of foods that are prohibited, which experts believe may cause nutritional deficiencies and increased hunger. Nutritional experts also worry that dieters are missing out on specific nutritional benefits, by not cooking certain foods and not eating animal products. Overall, the Hallelujah Diet will help people lose weight because of the food limitations and reduced calorie intake, but experts believe it could do more harm than good to followers because it lacks scientific backing and may cause serious nutritional deficiencies. - Martha’s Vineyard Diet Detox
Martha Vineyard’s Diet Detox claims to help dieters lose 21 pounds in 21 days with a nontraditional diet, but rather a detoxification to cleanse the body and lose weight. This liquid diet involves drinking every two hours either vegetable or fruit juices, homemade soups, water or powdered antioxidant berry and green drinks available through the author’s site. Once cleansed of toxins, dieters are supposed to feel better, have increased metabolism and be 21 pounds lighter. After 21 days, dieters return to their normal diet but must avoid processed and junk foods because the cleansed body cannot tolerate them. Experts say that this detox can help you lose weight because of strict caloric reduction, but dieters may end up heavier in the end because their bodies burned up more muscle mass than fat during the diet. Experts also discount the diet’s claim to cleanse your body of harmful toxins, arguing that our bodies do this naturally. All in all, experts suspect people who complete this detox will end up hungrier, heavier and deficient of important vitamins and minerals.
