Nearly half of U.S. adults try to lose weight year-round, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some will take a balanced approach, changing lifestyle habits and improving their nutrition to achieve their goals slowly and steadily. But others are trying what’s called a fad diet, or a popular diet plan designed to help you lose weight quickly, according to one study.
The hallmark of the fad diet is restriction, says Melissa Rifkin, RD, who lives in Mount Kisco, New York. To achieve rapid weight loss, as many fad diets claim, you often need to eliminate certain foods. “Fad diets tend to be extremely restrictive, causing followers to miss out on certain food groups or nutrients, which can deplete our bodies,” she explains. Unfortunately, many people tend to quickly abandon these diets when they begin to crave foods on their “no-eat” list, a natural response to inflexible dietary guidelines.
Fad diets come and go, but some have stood the test of time, reinvented themselves, or become so popular that it’s easy to remember them. Here is a sampling of the 10 most famous diets of all time; plus if it exists it’s really worth pursuing.
1. Atkins Diet
Atkins is all about low-carb nutrition, and the modern Atkins program allows you to choose your carbohydrate goals from 20 grams per day (mimicking the ketogenic diet), 40 grams, or 100 grams. Stricter carbohydrate goals result in faster weight loss. Even though it’s a famous diet, many people think it’s not sustainable, says Leah Reitmayer, a sports dietitian in Fayetteville, North Carolina. “Carbohydrates are your main source of energy. I don’t recommend low carb because your body needs these macronutrients. “If you’re trying to go on a diet to be healthy, why are you removing the essential nutrients your body needs to be healthy?” she says.
Zone 2 Diet
The Zone diet, popularized by Jennifer Aniston, involves eating 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent protein and 30 percent fat. “This diet has some benefit because it’s based on whole foods and emphasizes protein and omega-3 fatty acids for anti-inflammatory benefit,” says Alyssa Smolen, RDN, who lives in Essex, New Jersey. Although balanced, the diet still lists some nutritious foods as off-limits, such as bananas, raisins, potatoes, and corn, and you’re instructed to eat less than one serving of grains and starches per day—rules that make this diet difficult to maintain long-term.
3. Keto Diet
The keto diet, a high-fat, very low-carb diet, was first developed in the 1920s as a medical diet to treat epilepsy, according to research. It had to wait 100 years to reach peak popularity among the public: in 2020, the keto diet was the most searched diet on Google in the United States, according to one review. One downside to this is that people can eat too much meat and cheese on this diet, Smolen says. This, in turn, can contribute to excessive intake of saturated fat, a type of fat that can increase your risk of heart disease, says Smolen. He also adds that small amounts of fruits and vegetables can be consumed, which is unhealthy. If you’re going keto, Smolen recommends doing so with the guidance of a medical team or registered dietitian so you can make sure you’re creating a nutritious diet, following keto properly, and monitoring your health.
4. Grapefruit Diet
It would be just as easy to replace the grapefruit with any of the trendy single-food diets that have come along over the years, like cabbage soup, hard-boiled eggs, or bone broth. Any of these foods are good for you, but they aren’t the sole focus of your entire diet. “No one food has everything you need. That’s why dietitians recommend eating a variety of fruits, vegetables, protein, and whole grains,” says Smolen. You can lose weight on the grapefruit diet, but that’s because severe food restrictions mean eating fewer than 1,000 calories a day. In general, Dietitians recommend skipping such diets.
5. Paleo Diet
Paleo, short for Paleolithic, is a diet consisting of the foods of a traditional hunter-gatherer. People following the paleo diet consume half their calories from lean animal foods, as well as eggs, fruit, non-starchy vegetables, unsaturated fats, some alcohol and water. One review notes that there are major health claims associated with the paleo diet, including that it cures heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. One thing that is not followed is the exclusion of whole grains (a food group linked to reducing the likelihood of these diseases) from the paleo diet, notes the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Another big downside is that following a diet that excludes many foods can lead to unhealthy, obsessive thoughts about your diet, Smolen says.
6. Gluten-Free Diet
For many people who have celiac disease or are allergic to gluten (the protein found in wheat, barley, and rye), avoiding foods containing gluten is a necessity, not a fad diet. But that’s partly due to celebrity advocates like Gwyneth Paltrow on E! The news was reported. A decade ago, most adults said gluten-free foods were healthier, and more than a quarter were buying them for weight loss, according to research at the time. But there is no evidence that gluten-free diets promote weight loss in general, according to the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
7. Master Cleaning
On this liquid-only diet, you drink a mixture of water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper for 10 days, and Beyonce reportedly used it to lose 20 pounds in two weeks for her role in the 2006 movie. dream girlsreported America Today. It’s time for liquid or juice diets, with their purported benefits of weight loss and detox. But juice fasting does not provide enough nutrients, and any weight loss will likely be temporary once you return to eating solid foods, according to the Mayo Clinic. And don’t forget: You have organs, especially your liver and kidneys, that naturally detoxify your body.
8. Whole30
You can tell from the 30 in its name that Whole30 is a fad diet; It is an elimination diet designed to be done for 30 days. According to the Whole30 website, the diet, which was developed in 2009, has strict rules about what you can and can’t eat, and if you don’t follow them you have to start over. Focus on healthy foods like meat, seafood, eggs, vegetables, fruits, and healthy fats while avoiding added sugar, alcohol, grains, legumes, and dairy. Although it’s popular and tests your determination to stick to a strict diet, there are no observational studies or randomized, controlled trials that support the benefits of Whole30 or compare how effective it is versus other weight-loss diets, research reports.
9. Low-Fat Diet
Remember the 1990s when SnackWell’s fat-free cookies were a healthy choice? This was at the height of the low-fat craze, where people tried to lose weight by eating foods that fell into the low-fat or fat-free category, such as fat-free salad dressings, chips, and frozen yogurt. The entire low-fat era spanned decades, notes the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, but now health experts are recognizing the value of foods containing healthy unsaturated fats, and we’ve moved on from the low-fat craze. “We need some fat to be a generally healthy person,” says Smolen. Fats not only provide energy, but they also help your body produce hormones and absorb the fat-soluble nutrients your body needs to function well. Fat contains more calories per gram than protein and carbohydrates; Therefore, reducing some of the fat in your diet may help you eat fewer calories and lose weight. But just because something is labeled fat-free, low-fat or reduced-fat doesn’t automatically make it healthy.
10. Special K Diet
When the Special K diet was introduced in the early 2000s, the goal was to lose two sizes of jeans in two weeks by eating Special K for breakfast and lunch, followed by a regular dinner. (In later versions, you could eat Special K items like bars instead of cereal.) This was a low-calorie plan that was never designed to be long-term, but somehow it felt like it could be done if you just had to. for several weeks. On a positive note, Rifkin points out that since there isn’t a lot of thought behind the diet and you’re mostly eating the same thing every day, it can be easy to follow. Still, two weeks can feel like an eternity. “There’s no variety and a lot of people get bored pretty easily,” he says, adding that it lacks adequate nutrition. This is another fad diet to skip.