The 5 best worst diets…
DO NOT TRY THESE AT HOME
You just finished your third box of air that you just got from the latest diet trend that Gywneth Paltrow swears by and can’t understand why you aren’t full. You tell yourself this is fine, you did survive on baby food for a week after all, and if (insert Instagram Influencer/celebrity person) can survive on baby food, why can’t you? Fellow Warriors, when it comes to fad diets, we have tried some pretty embarrassing diets in our time.
Luckily for you, because we have tried almost every single diet out there, we can share our experiences, why it doesn’t work and HOW to change that unhealthy mind set into a POSITIVE, HEALTHY one in which you can enjoy your food AND still have the results of looking as good as Beyonce. From the Cayenne Pepper Diet to the Juice Diet to the Paleo diet, we have chosen our top 5 worst diets where we have been there, done that and definitely gotten the t-shirt/juicer/recipe book.
We will follow our own fad dieting experiences with what it was, how we found it, and if it gets the StrongHer stamp of approval for you to try.We will end each review of our tried and tested fad diets with a quote from our archives to help you when you find yourself sinking into a another fad diet of your own. Write these slogans down, repeat it, put it up at your desk, your pillow, tattoo it on your face if necessary (Not recommended, easier and cheaper to buy post it notes) and REPEAT AFTER US:
Eat What You Want!
Eat Where You Want!
So let’s get started with Sam and the first one on our list: ‘Beyonce’s Master Cleanse : The Cayenne Pepper Diet’.
1.The Cayenne Pepper Diet
Why Did You Start It, Sam?
ITS CRAP!!
I started it because Beyonce was doing it and I wanted to be Beyonce. At the time I was absolutely OBSESSED with Beyonce and I wanted to do everything she was doing and look as much like her as possible.There were a few minor complications with this, the fact that I am white and short to start, but I powered through. (Tig told me she couldn’t be bothered with this diet because she looks more like Beyonce than I ever could)
What Is The ‘Cayenne Pepper’ Diet?
Boiling water, cayenne pepper and a bit of honey. You can’t have anything else. That’s it.
Results:
I did it for a day and half and I was fucking starving. I was moody as fuck and HANGRY.I kept on thinking :"I can’t live like this, how do you do this!”, so I said “Screw you Beyonce!” (Not really, I still love Beyonce, Beyonce for life) and I went back to eating normal food, which is my salad in my orange bowl with my lucozade.
Should Warriors Try This Diet?
No. Stop it. Don’t do it. It’s silly. Just have some food. Hot water is not nutritious. Keep the hot water for bathing, not for substitute meals. As a stable food intake it doesn’t work.
Repeat After Us:
“If You Can’t See Yourself Doing It In 5 years, Don’t Bother!”
If you can’t see yourself living on boiled water and cayenne pepper and not starving or going into a hangry rage in 5 years time, should you really waste your time on a diet where you will end up running to the nearest food store to buy as much food as you can for your starving body in a few days anyway? Why put yourself through that when you can find something more sustainable for the same body you want?
2.The Paleo Diet That Could Have Been The Keto Diet
Why Did You Start It, Tig?
My main objective was to lose weight. I had been travelling in China for about a year and I came back and had just moved to London and I was working in LA Fitness. It was probably one of the heaviest I had ever been and I was around about 80 kgs.I had never lifted before. All the rage at that time was about eating as much protein and ‘natural’ things as possible.
What Is The ‘Paleo’ Diet?
The aim is to eat high fatty protein and then just nuts and little bits of fruit. All I heard was just eat fatty protein, and that’s what I did. I don’t remember having that many carbs but my main focus was eating really salty, fatty, meat for some reason. So bacon, sausages, that kind of thing. I tried to eat nuts, but I’m not really a fan of nuts so I just had peanut butter instead. I also may have mixed up Keto with Paleo, so I didn’t have that many carbs either.
Results:
I remember living in a house share in Tooting and the people in the house that I was living with going: “you’re really healthy, all you eat is eggs, bacon and avocado”, so I thought I was on to a good one, but I found it to be really fatty. I think I started to lift not long after, but honestly, now I can’t handle eating that many fats because I think I overdid it in that time.
Should Warriors Try This Diet?
Don’t do it. In terms of as far as fad diets go, it’s not the worst one because the base of it is to eat natural things that are grown from the ground, so from that perspective it’s not a bad one at all. I think the way that it was marketed was all wrong though and what I took from it was to just eat high fatty protein, and if you are just eating fatty protein and nothing else, your body has no way of breaking that down or balancing it out.
Repeat After Us:
“Restriction Will Not Lead To Perfection”
Stop. Refocus. Find Normality.
Have a little bit of everything.
It’s all about balance and finding the normality. By just eating healthy fats and nothing else, your body is still feeling restricted because you are restricting it to one type of food when your body needs a variation of foods to keep it healthy. Putting restrictions like that on yourself will only lead to more cravings and your own body and mind becoming more tired because it is not getting all the nutrients it needs.
3.The Jason Vale Juice Diet
Why Did You Start It, Sam?
I started this diet in 2012 and I did it for a few years on and off.The reason why I found out about this is that I was living in India and I lost a lot of weight because I got really really sick, and then I put on a lot of weight because all I was eating was rice. I came back to England and I wanted to lose the weight fast and one of the girls had said “Oh, I lost of weight by doing this Jason Vale juice diet …” and I tried it.
What Is The ‘Juice’ Diet?
For breakfast, lunch and dinner all you have is liquid juices for 14 days. You have to buy a recipe book and a juicer, which I did.
Results:
I went all in for this one. Even when I went out for dinner with my friends, I used to bring my juice and be like: “No, I can’t eat anything because I’m having my juice, enjoy your burger”. Sure enough, I did it for 14 days and I did lose a lot of weight but then I went back to eating normally and I put on all the weight again. I did this diet on and off for years and I ended up in the cycle of yo-yo dieting.
Should Warriors Try This Diet?
Anyone who’s out there doing it, don’t do it. It’s a yo-yo diet because it’s not sustainable. You’re not going to be able to stick to it, you’re just drinking and not eating anything and you get…you guessed it, HUNGRY. When you are that hungry, all you think about is food, you dream about it because juice isn’t going to make you full.You don’t want to JUST be thinking about food ,there are better things to think of in life.
Repeat After Us:
”Consistency Is The Best Diet”
Yo-yo dieting happens because your body craves things you aren’t giving it, like actual food. Solid food in variation will give you what your body needs, and will keep the yo -yo dieting at bay, because you aren’t restricting yourself. Focus on being consistent instead of wanting to lose weight too fast, because ultimately you won’t be able to keep that weight up (or down?) If the diet you are on isn’t sustainable.
4. The No Carbs Diet
Why Did You Start It, Sam?
It was 2011 and I as 20.I decided to cut out carbs a year before I went to India as this was the point where I was recovering from my eating disorder and I didn’t know what to do.I didn’t know what I should have been eating, so I decided to cut out carbs altogether.
What Is The ‘No Carbs’ Diet?
The No Carbs diet is the most common one when it comes to fad diets. In the general sense, it means no carbs whatsoever. This includes bread, pasta, potatoes and rice. In India, I remember going to the market to go get loads of fruit and veg and one of the girls said to me: “I thought you don’t eat carbs” and that is when I discovered that I had been eating carbs this whole time. Mortified.
Results:
I lost weight initially, because obviously if you cut out bread and pasta and all the things I was eating a lot of you would lose weight, so yes I did lose weight, but I couldn’t maintain it and because our bodies need carbs, I found carbs again in India, where I ate rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Carbs found me in the end and stuck to me because our bodies need carbs to be healthy and balanced and if we don’t have them, we crave them until eventually we give in and eat ALL the rice in a foreign country.
Should Warriors Try This Diet?
Don’t do it. My advice for anyone is to not cut out anything. Potentially reduce it, yes, but don’t cut it out, because if your body is used to it or if your body needs it, it will crave it, so you can’t just cut it out.
In my No Carb diet, in my head, I was doing no carbs even though I was eating fruit and veg which are carbs too. This is a very common mistake that we hear from our Warriors. They don’t realise that fruit and veg are carbs so they think they are doing no carbs when actually, they are eating an abundance of them in what they think is no carb foods.
Repeat After Us:
“Carbs Are Like Clothes”
People say: “Do I need carbs?” Well, do you need clothes? You can walk around out in the cold, nipples erect because you’re freezing, hairs on your legs standing up, but you wouldn’t be as comfortable if you had clothes on.The same is with carbs. You could not eat carbs resulting in everything being really hard and stressful while you feel sluggish, or you could enjoy life and take in the carbs that your body needs. Carbs are needed for energy and to make you happy, and when you don’t eat them you are sad, and life is crap. Just eat some noodles.
5.The Egg and Grapefruit Diet
Why Did You Start It Tig?:
I was looking for some fitness regime from body building.com and the food was boring, so I decided the only rational thing to do was eliminate all food other than grapefruit and eggs.
At the time these diets were all the rage and I wanted to be cool, I want to fit in with my friends, so I thought that I better eat my egg and my grapefruit. I ended up getting Sam to join me with the diet when we were both working at the same Call Centre together.
What Is The ‘Egg and Grapefruit’ Diet?:
Imagine looking at your plate and all you’ve got is an egg and some grapefruit, and then deciding it’s a good idea to just drink grapefruit juice because you consumed too much actual grapefruit.There was bacon listed on the diet too, but we cut that out because we decided we weren’t going to get the results we wanted if we had anything other than egg and grapefruit.
Results:
Tig: After day 2, I carried on pretending I was on the diet while going home and secretly eating steak, so no, not sustainable.
Sam: I stuck it out for a week and lost quite a bit of weight because I was starving myself and I was only consuming protein and sugar.
Should Warriors Try This Diet?:
We both agree that it was shit. (And we don’t just mean metaphorically.) Don’t do it, and don’t betray your best friend and go home and eat steak, the little witch.(Last bit added by Sam)
Repeat After Us:
“Inform Yourself Before You Try To Transform Yourself”
This diet is still up on healthline.com which shows this is a clear example of misinformation of extremely unhealthy eating tips within the health community and it should be removed. Our primary aim is to inform you because we see the huge conflicts within the information available to you, and this diet that we have tried before learning about nutrition is a perfect example of how misinformation can cause unhealthy eating problems. 2 eggs and a grapefruit is not going to give you a healthy, happy body.
So fellow Warriors, do you have a crazy fad diet you tried? Let us know in the comments below, and if you do find yourself struggling with a fad diet yourself and need some guidance, join our class. We are all about creating positive habits and our purpose is to re-educate and get every woman to feel empowered and proud of their bodies. Most importantly, it’s about finding balance and loving food, loving yourself, and being happy, the physical transformations will come easily from that.We are here to help you, remind you, and encourage you to be the best, most healthy version of yourself.
We will sign off with one more sentence for all of our Warriors, and this one we want you stick in front of you today, to remind yourself, that…
NOTHING’S IMPOSSIBLE!
Sam and Tig signing out, Until next time. X