CLEARWATER, Fla. – For the past three years, Heidi Templeton has used her $150 juicer every day. Every morning she is religious about her juicing routine. Templeton told Ivanhoe, "I felt sluggish before I started juicing."
Experts say an over-jolt of juicing could be a recipe for trouble because fiber and grains could fall to the wayside.
Recommended Videos
Registered dietician Nancy Maza said, "The average person should get 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day, and if the fiber is being extracted, and you're not getting any fruits and vegetables, you might have trouble getting that 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day."
Maza also tells her patients to stay away from extreme diets that restrict certain foods, like the elimination diet. It excludes coffee, dairy, eggs, sugar, shellfish, wheat, potatoes, corn and artificial ingredients.
There is also the "five-bite diet" where you take just five bites of any meal at any one time. The doctor who created it claims to have lost 60 pounds in 40 days.
"It's another way to sell books," Maza said. "People are looking for quick fixes."
Other extreme methods include the tapeworm diet. Followers consume a tapeworm in a pill and the idea is that the worm digests what you eat.
There's the baby food diet, where you simply substitute two to three meals a day with jars of pureed baby food.
Maybe most extreme is the feeding tube diet. For 10 days, a tube in your nose delivers a liquid-only mixture of protein, fat and water to your stomach.
But experts say these diet fads aren't leading to long-term weight loss. Despite more than 45 million Americans reporting being on some kind of diet, nearly 70 percent are overweight or obese. So maybe the best diet isn't a diet at all, but a healthy lifestyle that includes a variety of whole foods.
"Usually, it has taken your whole life to get where you are as far as your weight and your health," Maza said. "It's not going to change overnight."
A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that vegans are usually thinner and have a lower risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Another study found that people who followed the Paleo diet -- which consists of lean meat, fish, vegetables and fruit, had lower blood pressure, cholesterol and improved insulin sensitivity after just 10 days.
Additional Information:
Almost 30 percent of the world today is overweight or obese, and in the past 33 years not one country has lowered its obesity rate.
About 13 percent of the world's obese population lives in the United States. Dieting has been a huge fad in the United States throughout history; however, now more than ever diets are becoming more extreme and dangerous.
About 45 million Americans go on a diet every year, and about $33 billion are spent on weight-loss products every year. There are also more types of dieting than ever before, some much riskier than others. People are willing to try anything to get the weight off as quickly and easily as possible.(Source: http://www.bmc.org/nutritionweight/services/weightmanagement.htm)
UNHEALTHY DIETING: In today's time there are many different diets people are trying. These types of crash diets are very harmful to your body because they can often be too much of a sudden change or not allow you to fuel your body as much as it needs. (Sources: http://www.doctoroz.com/slideshow/6-extreme-diets-6-clicks?gallery=true and http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/fashion/weddings/readers-respond-to-brides-losing-weight-for-weddings.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)
LONG TERM EFFECTS: Experts are saying that these diet crazes are leading to short-term weight loss, but overall they aren't leading to weight loss long term. These diets, in most cases, aren't causing people to keep the weight off for good. Out of the 45 million people who take part in dieting each year, 70 percent are overweight. Doctors are therefore saying that diets aren't the best way to lose weight, but to instead live a healthy lifestyle, which means eating a variety of whole foods for a balanced diet. A good website for healthier recipes is: www.skinnytaste.com. (Source: http://www.prevention.com/food/healthy-eating-tips/4-popular-extreme-diets)