From baby food to cabbage soup, celebrities resort to many unbelievable methods to stay in perfect shape. But how healthy can these popular fad diets be?
Stars are known for their oftentimes extreme behaviors, especially when it comes to issues of beauty and weight. The pressure to stay thin, youthful and radiant is intense in Hollywood and has popularized a slew of zany health fads. Here are just a few of the bizarre diet trends floating around Tinsel town:
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Extreme Celeb Food Diets
- The Baby Food Diet: Pureed fruit and vegetables are the mainstay of this new fad diet. The dieters usually restrict themselves to just one regular meal a day and fill the rest of their calories with baby food. Pounds can drop quickly, but this is due to the tiny portion sizes of the food. Rumor has it that Jennifer Aniston has been a follower of the diet while filming alongside Adam Sandler in the comedy, Just Go With It.
- The Coconut Diet: Jennifer Aniston has been linked to another bizarre recent diet craze. The coconut diet argues that the healthiest type of fat above all else comes from coconut oil. People who follow the diet must incorporate coconut into all their daily meals, along with drinking plenty of coconut water. This requires a great deal of meal planning, not to mention the fact that a variety of healthy types of fat, like polyunsaturated fats, are needed for good health.
Liquid-Based Diet Fads
- The Lemonade “Master” Cleanse: Beyonce is an admitted participant of the Master Cleanse, a concoction of lemon water, maple syrup and cayenne pepper to be taken as a dieter’s sole nourishment for two straight weeks. She used the cleanse to look extra slim in her film, Dreamgirls. It worked, due to the fact that she was drinking only fluids for days on end. Beyonce also admitted that the pounds came right back after discontinuing this starvation diet.
- The Cabbage Soup Diet: Jaime Pressly confessed to eating this soup for seven straight days to lose her baby weight. Why eat cabbage in particular? Any soup is mostly liquid, and a low-calorie vegetable like cabbage ensures that the dieter is taking in basically water and thus, barely any calories. Pressly even admits that the main device she uses to keep the pounds off permanently is regular, intensive exercise, not extreme dieting.
- Kombucha: This drink of fermented tea containing cultures of bacteria supposedly gives its drinkers a special immunity boost. No studies have confirmed the health benefits yet, but it’s a must-have for stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron Diaz. Lindsay Lohan has been spotted with the drink as well, which is interesting because the tea contains trace elements of alcohol from the fermentation process. Maybe the tea makers eventually can market it as the “nicotine patch” for alcohol.
For Those Considering a Fad Diet
The important fact to remember when considering any fad diet is that even the stars themselves admit to gaining back most or all of the weight lost after one of these crazy diet sessions. Of course, for them, losing weight for just a five-hour appearance at an important award ceremony might seem worth it. However, fluctuating up and down in weight proves disastrous for anyone’s health, not to mention the fact that these diet regimes are a virtual marathon of deprivation.
