Diet Fads of the Past
Keeping in last week’s theme of looking back to the past for some fun fads, here are few diet fads from the past. This is a small list of the fads that have been around, but they are some of the most popular ones. 1950s
Grapefruit Diet: The diet in its basic form (there are a few variations on this particular diet) is to eat ½ of a grapefruit before every meal, eat only 1200 calories and decrease your carb intake to almost none. The idea was to eat this way for 10-12 days at a time and take 2 days off. The big problem with this diet is not the grapefruit but the limited number of calories for each day and the imbalance of not having enough carbohydrates.
1960s
Weight Watchers: Started by Jean Nidetch in her home in NYC, where she decided to gather a few of her friends to help support each other on their journey to lose weight. The idea caught on and now Weight Watchers is an international success for those trying to lose weight.
Drinking Man’s Diet: This was one of the first diets to promote low carbs with high protein intake. The idea was to eat “like a man” by eating steak, lobsters, etc. and keeping your carbohydrates down to less than 60g a day. Of course this diet promoted that all that yummy protein was even better if you washed it down with a good martini or Old Fashioned.
1970s
Sleeping Beauty Diet: You can guess how this diet works. You can’t eat while you sleep so the more you sleep the less you eat the more weight you lose. The flaws with diet are obviously they are not even worth writing down.
Last Chance Diet: Created by Roger Lim MD you were only suppose to heat his liquid creations Prolim which was made up of ground animal horns, hooves, and other slaughter house by products. This diet basically consisted of you drinking this concoction to the tune of 400 calories a day and while avoiding ingesting anything remotely nutritional. Again the flaws with this diet are so obvious it is hard to believe anyone would buy the stuff.
1980s
Beverly Hills Diet: A best seller by Judy Mazel, the Beverly Hills Diet is a 6 week long program starting off with 10 days of nothing but fruit, adding bread on days 11-18 and on Day 19 you can add protein. This diet is still fairly popular, but with the limited amount of food you can eat it is not a healthy option to losing weight.
Caveman Diet: Let’s call this the father of the Paelo diet. The idea is to eat food from the Paleolithic Era. While cutting out processed foods in general is a great choice cutting out a whole source of food is a slippery slope.
1990s
Cabbage Soup Diet 7 days of yummy cabbage soup and nothing else. Of course you are going to lose weight, but it will be water weight and once you start to bring in solid foods again you will gain those few pounds back and probably a few more as you binge on your favorite foods.
Blood Type Diet: Peter J. D’Amato’s book Eat Right for Your Type suggests that your blood type is the most important factor in determining a healthy diet. Meaning that each blood type would have it’s own specific diet plan. A quick break down: O-Type should have a high protein diet, Type A blood should be mostly vegetarian and consume no red meat, Type B are the only blood type that thrive on having dairy in their diet. Type B’s he suggested have strong immune systems and further evolved digestive system than any other blood type. Those with Type AB can mix/choose between the diet of Type A and Type B. (Aren’t they lucky?)
The one thing all these diets have in common is they restrict your calories and food groups not a good thing. You can also see that certain diet themes have been around for some time (low carbs/Paleo) and just dressed up differently with each generation. However, the key to losing weight is a balance of making better choices and burning off more calories than you take in. Granted it isn’t always easy and some days you go crazy and make one (or a few) bad decisions. Maintaining a healthy weight is not a quick fix but a life style change.
Have you tried any of these or other fad diets?