Name any diet gimmicks or fads you have ever tried.:)

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  • kds10
    kds10 Posts: 452 Member
    zdyb23456 wrote: »
    Remember when low-fat/fat free was the key to losing weight? Yep, I did that.

    Yep did that for many years. Still have a part of me that thinks 'watch" my fat content..hard to get out of that thinking.
  • amorfati601070
    amorfati601070 Posts: 2,862 Member
    edited November 2018
    I did keto once. It was not a good time. Very low energy.

  • Deviette
    Deviette Posts: 979 Member
    - When I was at school I did the equivalent of the special k diet, except I did it with any cereal. It worked, but not long term
    - At uni I spent pretty much two weeks just "eating" soup. Sure I felt full pretty much all the time and lost some weight, but when I went back to eating normally it all came back again. That and the weight loss was probably more to do with the fact that there was nothing in my body.
    - I also did a potato replacement plan at one point where everywhere I'd replace the "potato element" (potato, rice, pasta, that sort of thing) of my meal with half a can of beans or lentils. In retrospect it was a method of lowering carbs and rising protein, but I got so bored of beans and it was never going to be sustainable in the long term.
    - I know I tried super high fiber at one point, but I found it difficult to manage.
    - Last time I tried to lose weight I probably drank my body weight in green tea every day due to a disillusion that it was going to help me to lose weight. I like green tea, so at least I enjoyed it not making any difference.
  • mackaylc
    mackaylc Posts: 22 Member
    My Mom, with all good intentions, put me on a diet when I was 10. It was based on a book, Dutchman Diet for Kids or something like that.I remember resenting every moment of it. The only thing I enjoyed was that I was allowed Diet Coke with vanilla extract in it.

    Others I have tried through the years:
    Joe Cross Juice Diet
    Ideal Protein
    Atkins
  • stareeeyed1
    stareeeyed1 Posts: 10 Member
    Atkins -- a modified light version that I adopted for about 4 months with a coworker of mine who'd been on it for several months ahead of me. Lost a bunch of weight, put it all back on when I started eating anything with a carb in it. Never again!
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,967 Member
    edited November 2018
    TBH I have never tried any fad diet to lose weight, but one time several years ago my department at work thought it would be "fun" to do a 7 day cleanse together. It was really random. Like day 1, fruits only. Day 2, veg only. Day 3, fruits and veg only. day 4, beef and tomatoes (LOL) and I don't remember the rest. I gave up at this point. It was just some random thing my coworker found on pinterest. dumbest thing I've ever done.
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,442 Member
    hesn92 wrote: »
    TBH I have never tried any fad diet to lose weight, but one time several years ago my department at work thought it would be "fun" to do a 7 day cleanse together. It was really random. Like day 1, fruits only. Day 2, veg only. Day 3, fruits and veg only. day 4, beef and tomatoes (LOL) and I don't remember the rest. I gave up at this point.

    Yuck! I would have brought doughnuts on Day 3. ;)
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,967 Member
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    hesn92 wrote: »
    TBH I have never tried any fad diet to lose weight, but one time several years ago my department at work thought it would be "fun" to do a 7 day cleanse together. It was really random. Like day 1, fruits only. Day 2, veg only. Day 3, fruits and veg only. day 4, beef and tomatoes (LOL) and I don't remember the rest. I gave up at this point.

    Yuck! I would have brought doughnuts on Day 3. ;)

    I actually had pizza for dinner on day 1 but didn't tell my coworkers that :D
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,283 Member
    I've actually been fortunate enough not to fall for any of the "real" gimmicks. I do recall chain-chewing a double pack of sugar free gum (sorbitol-sweetened), spending a miserable hour in the ladies' room afterwards, and wondering whether going out of my way to ingest sorbitol deliberately might not help me lose. Then I looked up the side effects of prolonged laxative use and decided against it. (I think part of the thing was, I was a university student living at home at the time. My father was a pharmacist. We never bought OTC meds. What he didn't get in blister pack samples from drug companies, he got wholesale from his colleagues. I didn't want to have to answer questions if he saw me with a box of Ex-Lax and if he got it for me, he'd be aware of how often I was asking for more. I thought this was a sneaky way to get what I needed, but I realized it was going to cause me wayyy too many problems.)

    When I went vegetarian, I thought it might help me lose weight. Totally ignoring that French fries, brownies, candy bars, nuts, etc., were all vegetarian or had veg versions. I kept up the diet because I found I enjoyed it, didn't miss the meat, and it seemed to clear up a couple of dermatological issues, but weight loss was on my mind.

    I tried crash dieting with basically crackers and tomato juice. Lasted a week.

    Other than that, I don't think I've done much.
  • Athijade
    Athijade Posts: 3,243 Member
    South Beach is the closest I have done. At the time it actually worked for me and I didn't find the restrictions too hard. I enjoyed the food and didn't miss carbs all that much. My friend and my mom were also following it so that helped a ton!

    Now though I have food restrictions due to medical reasons so cutting out anything else is not something I want to do. I am trying to get back on the wagon now after other medical issues and think I have come up with something that will work best for me.

  • MsBaz2018
    MsBaz2018 Posts: 384 Member
    edited November 2018
    I tried Alli. I didn't think it would help with weight loss but I was hoping it would slow down weight gain.

    Slimfast
    Although as others said is it really a fad? I just replaced maybe a couple of meals a week with it. I quite liked it tbh.

    South Beach diet
    I don't remember anything from that one. In any case I always very loosely interprete those diets. I ate crepes every Saturday during that South Beach period (just because I like them)
  • nicholahmola
    nicholahmola Posts: 18 Member
    bossvt wrote: »
    Pretend you're entering menopause diet (for men too)
    Pretend someone's died diet
    Pretend the tax man is chasing you diet
    Pretend you're about to get evicted diet
    Pretend you have been cast for a film and you have to get up early and go on set and the camera adds 3492818495 pounds diet

    I almost fell off the treadmill laughing at this...
  • New_Heavens_Earth
    New_Heavens_Earth Posts: 610 Member
    WW multiple times
    Sadkhin complex diet
    Rice diet
    Low fat, high fiber
    Bodybuilder style cutting diet
    Exchange plan
    Slim Fast
    Special K cereal diet
    Juice cleanse
    Whatever diet that Prevention magazine or Women's World magazine was advertising for that issue (I always picked up an issue, along with my binge foods :/ )
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,676 Member
    2aycocks wrote: »
    AnvilHead wrote: »
    I tried the keto fad for almost a year, about 17 years ago. Lost weight, but couldn't see giving up some of my favorite foods forever for no good reason.

    I don't remember if this diet had a name that many years ago. It was before Atkins. Do you?

    Stillman's was the all protein diet before Atkins. Almost no carbs were allowed. It was just eggs, cottage cheese and meat. No salad, no veggies, no cheese or milk. I couldn't eat eggs, cottage cheese or chicken for years afterwards. I was a teenager when my mother started this diet. My sister and I joined her though we weren't very heavy. I don't know if we lost any weight or not. IIRC, we'd do it for a month or so, then go off it, then start over again after all the weight came back.
  • bigbandjohn
    bigbandjohn Posts: 769 Member
    NewChapterInMyLife wrote: »
    I forgot about some of these:) i also did the Slim Fast thing.

    Penn Gilette (of Penn and Teller) has made comments about slim-fast, saying he was on the Milkshake diet in the 70's... and his tasted better!

    Does anyone remember the 3 day "Heart Association" diet? 3 days a week you ate a very specific list of foods, and then would eat normal the other 4 days of the week. I could never do it because it involved eating cantalope, which to say I despise it is a gross understatement of a gross understatement.
  • HoneyBadger302
    HoneyBadger302 Posts: 1,970 Member
    It's been many many years since I tried these, but the ones I tried included:

    Slim Fast
    Garcinia Cambogia
    HydroxyCut
    Apple Cider Vinegar

    None of them ever worked LOL.
  • ghudson92
    ghudson92 Posts: 2,061 Member
    5 Day Juice Cleanse - a sad time in my life, I like solid food a lot!
    Bootea Teatox - not fun. Too much time spent on the toilet.
    MyProtein Meal Replacement - went along the same principles as all the shakes, plus some strange capsules. Again, very sad.
    Cleanse and Detox tablets from Holland and Barrett - useless waste of money.

    I can't tell you how glad I am to be on the other side of all that nonsense and be losing weight in a healthy and steady way.
  • ADeCapua
    ADeCapua Posts: 35 Member
    edited November 2018
    Let's see, I tried Slim Fast shakes (starved and didn't lose any weight), but I did need my gallbladder removed thanks to stones. Richard Simmons Deal-A-Meal plan (unworkable at all for me). I did a low-fat, higher carb diet with Stop the Insanity's Susan Powter and exercised to her videos. The videos were good, and I did lose some weight (20 ish pounds) (and I'd still recommend them) and had a relatively healthy pregnancy doing it, but ultimately didn't stick with it. My former doctor wanted me to buy shakes/meal replacement bars from him - at an extra charge for his help and monitoring! -told him no thanks. Aren't doctors supposed to help you if you need weight loss as part of his regular job? He also suggested to me gastric bypass surgery, again, no thanks. As for fad fitness equipment. when I was a teen I bought a device with a handle, spring and pedals. You put your feet in the pedals, and did sit-ups holding the handle. I really hurt my back very badly doing this, and today I have arthritis in my back. I also bought one of those ski type machines at a yard sale when I was a young adult. Neither helped me. I'm old enough to have had a vinyl record album that came with picture instructions for exercises to do when I was a teen in the 1980's. And I tried an aerobic weight loss club in middle school, but it only met once a week, so was never enough exercise, even in my leotard, to lose any weight. It also disbanded quite quickly.
    Thank God for MyFitnessPal, calorie counting/portion control, works with added exercise!
  • michael1976_ca
    michael1976_ca Posts: 3,488 Member
    I tried some pill for weight loss. It gave me the twitching in the eye and i couldn't sleep. It sucked

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