1. Raw Food Diet
Eating raw is based on trying to get the majority of your calories fromunprocessed and uncooked foods. Rawists believe that eating foods above116°–118° F will destroy enzymes that provide many health benefits. While mostdietitians would agree that eating lots of minimally processed fruits,vegetables, and grains is best, we also understand that processing actuallyboosts the bioavailability of several key nutrients, primarily thephytonutrients, and inactivatessome of the unhealthy compounds.

The raw food diet is rich in all plant-based foods including fruits andvegetables; nuts and seeds; and sprouted seeds, grains, and beans. Don’t get mewrong; these ingredients are great—and you can make plenty of meals using these guidelines. But following this typeof diet to a T requires a lot of complicated food preparation—creating pine nutand yeast “cheese,” for example—that makes it impractical for most workingwomen.

I have had plenty of experience with raw foods because I live in Marin County, Calif., where RoxanneKlein, the coauthor of Raw, started Roxanne’s Fine Cuisine, a line ofpricey prepared raw food creations available at our Whole Foods and otherhigh-end supermarkets. I’ve tried several of the items but have found them tobe extremely expensive and not very tasty—certainly nothing I could follow formore than a day or two at most.

As a “flexitarian” and part-time vegan, I know that eating lower on the foodchain can help promote weight loss, but I also know that caloric content is notrelated to the heated treatment of food. Skip the raw food diet, and eat morehealthful whole foods—cooked or raw—to help whittle your waist, not yourwallet.

2. hCG Diet
The hCG diet is a very low-calorie plan (500 to 800 calories per day)supplemented with injections of the pregnancy hormone humanchorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Any diet that drops below 1,000calories is really unsafe for most of us to begin with, and you’re apt to losea lot of weight even if you’re getting injected with milk shakes. Of course,the golden rule of dieting is that the faster it comes off, the more likely youare to regain it, so this diet would be on my list no matter what…but the hCGshots raise so many red flags I don’t know where to begin. Bottom line:Scientists don’t know if hCG is safe to inject when you’re not producing itnaturally, so please don’t be a weight-loss guinea pig.

3. Master Cleanse
In southern California, this is abig trend. Dieters are trying the “cleanse” by drinking a concoction ofsqueezed lemons, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper several times a day for 10days, says Karla Campbell, MS, RD, a dietitian in Long Beach, Calif. Then theydown an herbal laxative tea at night and a quart of salt water first thing inthe morning, supposedly to clean out the GI tract and bowels. Needless to say,there are no studies to suggest that our GI tracts and organs need any help inremoving waste or so-called toxins from the body.

The diet is only 650–1,300 calories, and it lacks key nutrients likeprotein, calcium, iron, and zinc—so no dietitian recommends doing it for morethan a day or two. Campbell alsoadds this warning: “Dieters who try it end up losing lean body mass, and thenwhen they are ‘cleansed’ and go back to their old ways, they gain fat. They endup being a fatter version of their old selves.”

4. Cabbage Soup Diet (and all of its single-food-diet cousins)
Contrary to rumors, this diet is not recommended by, nor did it originate with,the American Heart Association (AHA); the Sacred Heart Memorial Hospital,in Spokane, Wash.;or any other health organization. In fact, AHA and others have made it knownthat you should steer clear of this fad diet.

While there are several versions of the diet, all have a seven-day cyclebased on all-you-can-eat “fat-burning” cabbage soup (a mix of cabbage, carrots,celery, tomatoes, peppers, and onions).

Since the diet provides plenty of liquids and nutrient-packed veggies, it’snot as bad as many other fad diets. However, if you enjoy food at all or have alife, you won’t be able to stay on any diet that restricts food groups orrelies on one or two superfoods for very long. And then you’ll be back whereyou started right after you go off it.

5. Ear Stapling
This relatively new fad is based on a theory among acupuncturists that an areaof the ear regulates your appetite. The procedure is like getting an earpierced, but the constant pressure of the staple on the “stomach” of your earis supposed to curtail your eating.

Fat chance. There is no science behind ear stapling for weight loss, butthere is plenty of evidence that stapling could lead to serious infections anddeformities. If you need help in controlling your appetite, better to trysomething that really works, like eating more fruits and vegetables and less ofeverything else.

6. Breatharian Diet
This one takes the cake. (Oh, but only if it did.) It’s a diet that promotesliving on air alone, no food or water. Hmm. That is pretty contrary to what Ilearned in undergraduate and graduate school while studying nutrition. Ibelieve our bodies will only survive a few days without water and a few weekswithout food.

The mumbo jumbo on this diet is that you align yourself to the universe andyou won’t need water or food. You know what this sounds like to me? Starvation.

 Source: http://su.pr/1LVGsI