From Paleo and the honey lemon diet to juice cleanses and colonic irrigations, most people have dipped their toes into at least one fad diets or health trends. We want to know which one of those you regret trying.
Sugar treats image from Shutterstock
When I was 15 I tried being a vegetarian. It was partly because I love animals and partly because I wanted to lose my baby fat. I lasted about 12 hours before jumping back on the delicious meat bandwagon. Considering I worked at a greasy Chinese restaurant at the time where I had to look at delectable meat dishes all day, that was definitely a stupid and futile diet to try.
Weight lost and the quest for better health has driven people to take drastic measures, including engaging in radical diets and committing to weird daily rituals. Australia’s very own Miranda Kerr likes to gargle coconut oil for 20 minutes every morning, which supposedly improves oral health. Colonic irrigation, where a tube is inserted up the butt to “wash out” the colon, was a popular fad a few years back.
Have you ever tried a diet or health trend that you ended up regretting? Let us know in the comments.
Comments
42 responses to “What’s The Stupidest Diet Or Health Trend You’ve Ever Tried?”
paleo
AKA Eat normal food but exclude certain foods to no factual reason.
AKA feed your baby bone broth instead of milk until the entire country calls you a cunt so you change it up a bit
It’s not for no facutal reasons. You clearly know nothing about paleo!
You see, cavemen had life expectancies at least double of what we have today. Therefore, we should eat the same things that cavemen might have eaten, based primarily off repeats of The Flintstones.
Don’t be ignant.
Except:
1. They didn’t
2. We’ve evolved massively since “cavemen” and our digestive system works best when you give it slow release energy from things like grain and struggles when you over consume proteins from meat.
3. Everything written down in favour of the paleo diet is based entirely on opinion and anecdote and has no factual basis or scientific grounding.
4. ignant? 😛
I wrote this before I realised how sarcastic your response was 😛
The paleo diet actually works, in my opinion… but if you’re abstaining from junk and sticking with just meat and veg, of course you’re going to lose weight and be healthier >_>
@spandaslui I agree with you there, eating unprocessed foods which usually means more fiber, less sugar and salts will mean you have a healthier diet overall. But I feel a little bit of common sense doesn’t constitute as a diet.
I agree – but I think the success comes from a more fundimental principle of ‘don’t eat crap – eat more vegetables’ which can apply to paleo, and many other dieting techniques too.
Not really a diet, but I take about 6 of those “Fat Magnet/Blaster” type tablets you see in the shops every day.
They’re essentially just reconstituted green coffee, but they seem to work (sort of)
removing carbohydrates from one’s diet (rice, potatoes, wheat products like pasta).
I would have sworn eastern diets that were rich in rice and pasta and didn’t have obesity epidemics like western diets, would kind of prove that to cut these items out would not be the panacea to reduce weight.
I love hot baked potatoes, pasta and rice and I am not giving them up. I also don’t think I need to as it is not the culprit in my diet, the processed sugar addiction is my (and probably most of everyone else’s) problem.
I predominantly eat vegetarian now out of concern for animal welfare and the economic and environmental cost of rearing an animal purely for food. It must have been all that brainwashing that I should reduce my own personal impact on the environment that has taken somewhat of an effect. That doesn’t mean I still wont have a super delicious chicken and pineapple pizza if it was placed in front of me though (faux-vegetarian 🙂 ).
I could really go for a doughnut right about now though (stupid subliminal messaging)
I’m doing a low carb diet right now. Weight’s dropping off.
Unlike paleo, there’s science to back it.
And yeah, it’s not for everyone. Sure, I miss potatoes but I have cheesecake covered in cream literally every night so it’s swings and roundabouts…
Tell me more about this delicious low carb cheesecake. I’m always up for more delicious cheesecakes!
To be honest, I have no idea how to make it or what’s in it. My girlfriend makes it, I just scoff it down hahaha!
I think she got the recipe of Reddit so maybe have a search through the r/keto subreddit.
Lemon Detox Diet – What a load of crap, I could only drink their liquid which was the equivalent of lemon flavored bile for a whole week. Sure I might of have dropped 3-4kgs but gained that right back when I started eating normally (but healthy this time). Total waste of money.
“Detox” is an excellent woo indicator.
Also, the salt flush.
*shudder*
I had a go at the infamous ‘lemon detox’ diet for two weeks, and had a go doing a ‘juice’ diet after being inspired by some documentary on the topic.
While both had a small impact in the short term (I’m talking weeks here) both were highly uncomfortable, and utterly unsustainable. I bounced straight back after both.
I’ve had the best success from a low GI diet.
was that the green smoothie documentary about the Australian going around America that was on Netflix?
it was quite inspirational and provoking…not enough to try it but I can see why one would.
The documentary was fat sick and nearly dead, after watching it bought a juice fountain like in the doco, tried it for 3 months and in the end my body started rejecting it, ended up really sick and even the thought of it made me queezy, I imagine it would work for some people though
Gazza was right on – it was fat, sick and nearly dead.
Nice in theory but upon close inspection it’s not a good idea. You lose all the fibre from eating the fruit and vegetables, and breaking them all down means you release tonnes of glucose into your body at once. For someone like me who was fighting off Insulin Resistance, it was the absolute opposite of what I needed.
I didn’t last as long as Sydney Gazza did – I lasted a week before I got tired of the ridiculous mood swings from my blood sugar, then I was back to ordinary food (at least cakes were pleasant to eat for all the sugar).
I can see how green smoothies would sound better than just a standard juice diet, but I’ve come to realise that just eating the darn stuff straight up is much better.
What ‘toxins’ did you feel you needed to remove from your body that the multiple biological systems specifically tasked with removing toxins was unable to achieve?
The premise, supposedly, was that if you stopped eating solids for a little while, you could let your body digest everything you had in your system, leaving it completely empty, allowing the body to “free up”, so to speak.
After this (and this was the dubious part), the ‘toxins’ would be drawn out of your intestinal system, to be removed regularly with the salt flush (If you want details, go look up the diet. I can’t stand the notion any more). *Shudder*
It had an interesting side effect in that after a fortnight of not eating solids, your ability to gorge on food was greatly reduced, in a way sort of ‘resetting’ your appetite. I could eat half a sandwich and feel properly full. However, in about 3 weeks it was back to normal (and by that time I was dying for a piece of cake, anyway)
Dukan diet (aka protein only)
I love meat, but holy fuck that shit was hard! Had to stop after a week.
That sounds awesome. Korean BBQ all day every day!
ha! I don’t think Korean BBQ was mentioned in the book but hey, that might make it much easier 😀
yes… shit was hard…
Apple Cider Vinegar, stupidest idea I ever tried
haha I can’t help but laugh at people who try the “juicing” & “detox” diets and think they will work past the first 2 weeks when they go back to eating there crappy processed foods and sugary drinks.
There is no secret to weight loss, calories in vs calories out. If you have more calories out then in you lose weight it’s that simple, it just depends if you want to be healthy whilst losing weight. If you want to eat McDonalds all day every day, as long as you burn more calories then you consume you will lose weight. Whether you are healthy or not after the fact is another story.
I agree with this to an extend however it should only be used as a basic form of diet.
Cals in/cals out is too basic when you have so many variables like people that are more susceptible to putting on weight from fats and high carb counts and then there’s delving into those that are gluten intolerant etc.
I managed about 10 days doing a sober-paleo-vegan experiment, which was as horrifying for me as it was for the people around me. Then last year I got around two weeks into ketosis (Atkin/carb-free) before I started forgetting my own name on a regular basis. That one took a little longer to recover from.
Ketosis is a state that diabetes can cause i think you mean a Ketogenic diet 😛 ?
Unless I’m mistaken, ketosis is a state in which our brain derives energy from broken down proteins instead of readily available glucose in your bloodstream. Not sure if you can get it from diabetes, but I don’t imagine why you couldn’t.
In a ketogenic diet, you use carefully arranged marconutrients to try and induce ketosis yourself.
You’re not mistaken. I’m doing it now.
Weight’s dropping off and I haven’t felt better in years.
This is true however if you go into Ketosis as a Diabetic it’s very dangerous, you can enter a Coma or die. 😛
As @ampersam says, a ketogenic diet induces ketosis, where the body’s using ketones metabolised from fats instead of glucose. Horrible, really. Besides forgetting simple words mid-sentence, always looking vague and distant, regular flu-like symptoms and horrible, horrible breath, it also means you can’t eat pasta. Forget it.
I haven’t had any of those symptoms. My girlfriend felt some flu-like symptoms for about 3 days.
As for horrible breath, I’m yet to hear any complaints and my mother can be brutal…
I once tried a No Alcohol diet. Was the worst 3 hours of my life.
The stupidest diet I’ve ever tried is the common Australian diet. Eat whatever you want while working a desk job and not going out of your way to exercise. Glad I got over that!
Oh, I dunno… I had a rather good time on that one! I particularly enjoyed the “western sydney” variant of that one, where most of the food consisted of dumplings.
I prefer my current diet, where I eat pretty healthy for breakfast / lunch, drink a tonne of water, don’t worry too much about what I’m eating for dinner, and exercise a crap tonne while working a job on my feet.
118kg -> 75kg currently.
There are necessary changes in your food decisions that require to position. build your call currently to go full out while not trying back. Move forward whereas being au fait of your habits and fully targeted on your meal designing and preparation.