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Top 10 Dumbest Fad Diets | Diet Reviews

We Take a Look at the Most Popular Fad Diets of the Past 30 Years and Pick The Top 10 Dumbest Fad Diets to Ever Be Unleashed on Dieters. 

The Fad Diet.

Nothing exemplifies the American obsession with quick fixes more than the seemingly endless parade of fad diets cooked up by everyone from modern snake-oil salesmen, to slick Internet entreprenuers, to corporate product marketing teams looking for a new way to sell an old product.

The formula for a fad diet is pretty consistent:

Take a single ”miracle food” , add a little glitz and glamour in the form of a celebrity (nevermind whether she actually uses it, just mentioning it will suffice), sprinkle on some big weight loss promises, mix in some mis-applied clinical research, finish it up with a heaping spoonful of dramatic before-and-after pictures and you pretty much have a recipe for the classic fad diet.  

The Top Ten Dumbest Fad Diets below go by many names and often have many variations.  

Like a virus, some of these diets just seem to naturally mutate once they are released on the Internet, so tracking down their origins or even how they work can be difficult. In this regard, they have more in common with urban legends, than eating plans.

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The Portfolio Diet: Lower Cholesterol Without Statin Drugs?

Find out whether the Portfolio Diet can help you lower cholesterol naturally through diet  … without Statin drugs.

Could dramatically lowering your cholesterol simply be a matter of eating the right combination of foods?

Dr. David J.A. Jenkins thinks so.  And if his research is right, it might actually be possible to cut cholesterol significantly just by eating the right foods, in the right combinations.

Jenkins, a nutrition and metabolism expert at the University of Toronto and the “Father” of the gylycemic index, calls it the “The Portfolio Diet” and the concept is actually quite straightforward: By combining a variety of foods that have been shown to lower cholesterol on their own, it may be possible to lower serum cholesterol naturally without resorting to prescription statin drugs.   

Besides having profound public health consequences, this approach to eating and cholesterol control also promises to lower the cost of treating high cholesterol, potentially saving millions in prescription drug costs and health issues that arise from the side-effects of prescription statin drugs.

The Portfolio Diet: The Sum Is Greater Than The Parts?

For more than a decade, researchers have known that certain foods like oatmeal and soy can help lower blood cholesterol levels. However, until recently these foods have been viewed more or less independently of each other.

Dr. Jenkins decided to take a look at how combining a variety of foods that have been shown to reduce cholesterol might collectively work together, providing more bang for your buck.  

Jenkins’ study took a look at forty-six healthy, middle-aged adults who had high cholesterol. The subjects were divided into three groups:

1.  One group was placed on a whole-grain and low-fat dairy diet that was low in saturated fats;
2.  The second group followed the same diet, but also took a lovastatin, a cholesterol-reducing statin drug;
3.  The third group ate a diet high in plant sterols, ”sticky” fiber, soy and almonds.   

All groups experienced a reduction in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), and not surprisingly, the statin group experienced the most dramatic drop — a 30.9 percent reduction.

However, what did surprise researchers was the reductions seen in the porfolio diet group, which experienced a 28.9 percent reduction in fasting blood cholesterol levels, making it nearly as effective at cutting cholesterol as prescription statin drugs.

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Kimkins Diet: Big Fat Fraud? | Diet Reviews

The Kimkins Diet Promises Dramatic Weight Loss, But A Little Investigation Shows Kimkins Is A Diet Disaster

I first saw the Kimkins Diet pop up in the Yahoo Answers Diet and Fitness category about 12 months ago.  Someone calling herself “Kimmer” was trolling the diet-related questions and posting cookie-cutter answers touting an amazing new diet that was “better than Atkins.” The claims seemed incredible: weight loss of up to 124 lbs and zero need to exercise.

Being curious about this “miracle diet” I clicked through.

What I found was typical of a fad diet site: Unbelievable claims of dramatic weight-loss, the usual testimonials (predominately from women) with before and after pictures, and “Kimmer’s” story of how she went from fat to model-thin using her own “amazing” diet plan.

There were even before and after pictures of Kimmer demonstrating her own transformation from morbidly obese to svelte beauty. With her low-cut leopard top and smoky eyes, I had to admit Kimmer looked pretty hot. It was hard to believe she was the same woman in the grainy “before” picture who looked like she was steadying herself with the handrail to keep from falling over under all that extra weight.

I clicked back to Yahoo Answers, marked her post as “spam” and moved on. 

Over the coming months, I saw a few questions about the “Kimkins Diet” here and there, posted some responses dismissing it as a unhealthy crash diet and recommended spending your $79.95 “membership fee” on some healthy, whole food.

I more or less forgot about it.

And then it hit. In June 2007, Woman’s World Magazine featured a cover story on the Kimkins Diet, complete with the pictures of glowing Kimkins success stories and the sensational headline “Better Than Gastric Bypass!”

Suddenly, Kimkins had gone mainstream.

What Is The Kimkins Diet?

The Kimkins Diet website describes the Kimkins diet as a “low-fat, low-carb” weight-loss program that “doesn’t require pills, special foods, expensive supplements” or “exercise.” It also presents itself as an alternative to costly gastric bypass surgery, which immediately throws up a red flag that the diet is targeting the most desperately overweight people — people who really need the help of a nutritionist and medical weight loss professional, not an Internet guru.

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The Special K Diet - Does It Work? | Diet Reviews

Can Eating Special K® Cereal Really Help You Lose Weight?

I’ve noticed lately on Yahoo Answers a lot of questions around the Special K diet.  Does it work? Can it help me lose body fat or weight? And more importantly, is it sustainable?

So I decided to dig a little deeper on this particular diet, since it seems to be gaining in popularity.

First, it’s important to understand that to be successful at hitting your fat loss and overall fitness goals, you have to stop thinking about “a diet” as something you do before your vacation to the Caribbean.  Your “diet” is a combination of your choices in food and your lifestyle, not something you do for a few weeks. In other words, it’s a long term commitment to eating more healthy.

That said, can eating Special K cereal help you lose body fat or weight?

What Is The Special K Diet?

According to Kellogg’s website, the Special K Diet has you eating a serving of Special K cereal for breakfast with 2/3 cup skim milk and some form of fresh fruit, or a Special K waffle with light syrup. 

You then replace another meal with a serving of Special K Cereal, or one of their “meal replacement” products, which is typically a Special K Protein Bar.  You then eat your third meal (dinner?) as you normally would.

The Special K diet then allows you two snacks during the day, but they need to be Special K products — either Special K cereal or their pre-packaged snacks like Special K Protein Snack Bars,  Protein Water and Mixes, Special K Cereal Bars, or Special K Snack Bites. You are also encouraged to eat fresh fruit and vegetables throughout the day.

With this diet plan, they tell you that you can lose up to “1 inch from your waist in two weeks.”

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