Whole 30
You focus on consuming whole foods for 30 days. The goal is to completely stay away from processed foods. This 30-day reset diet was formulated by Melissa Hartwig. Eating whole foods, it is believed, helps get rid of ingredients that harm the gut microbiome. The fact that it is only a 30-day reset programme works great for people who are not used to dieting for long periods of time.
Intermittent Fasting
This is fast catching up as the go-to diet programme for those looking at weight loss. In this one has to eat meals between noon and 8 pm. Some people also make the fasting time longer by having the first meal after 1 pm, or even 3 pm. This diet is not for those who believe that skipping breakfast adds to your weight. Practitioners of this diet say that it also has the ability to regulate insulin resistance. The basic idea is to: Eat more per meal, but with fewer meals.
Carb Cycling
It’s all about perfecting the cycle of carb intake: Eating high carbs on certain days and low carb on others. It helps those wanting to maximise lean muscle growth. People who feel they aren’t getting the desired results from a strict diet regime, go in for carb cycling.
DASH Diet
This is more for people fighting hypertension and related lifestyle diseases. You pack in healthy meals comprising fruits, veggies, lean protein, whole grain, low-fat dairy, while staying away from saturated fat, full-fat dairy, red meat, tropical oils, and of course, sweets. Also, the most important thing to be kept in mind is to cap the intake of sodium and slowly lower it to around 1,500 mg a day.
Gut-friendly Food
Gut health is one of the most talked-about diet fads today. What we eat, and don’t, affects our gut in countless ways and that in return affects our overall wellbeing and translates into good bacteria. Colourful veggies, greens, grains all build positive gut environment, while meat, junk food, dairy, and eggs will adversely affect it.
Werewolf Diet
This involves fasting according to the lunar calendar. It is believed that if one consumes only water and juice during a full moon day, one ends up losing up to three kilos in water weight. It has specific eating plans for each phase of the moon. But while one does lose weight, it tends to all come back as this diet is not sustainable in the long run.
Cookie Diet
Also known as The Hollywood Cookie Diet, this promises that eating nothing but cookies will help you drop kilos. One has to consume a specially made ‘high-fibre’ ‘weight-loss’ cookie for all the meals, till dinner. One can then have a normal dinner. Whether this works or not is anybody’s guess, but the sound of cookies does make it sound most appealing.
The Five-Bite Diet
You skip breakfast, and thereafter eat only five bites of food for lunch and dinner. The plus-point is you get to eat what you want. But you better practice some giant bites on the sly before starting on this one!
The Baby Food Diet
Dieters around the world are replacing their meals with about 12-14 jars of baby food to be consumed in a day, followed by a low-calorie dinner. While digging into a jar of mushy food may be some people’s idea of a good way of keeping the pounds away, it surely does not make for appealing food choice, even by dietary standards.
Breatharian Diet
People who practice this diet claim to live off only water, tea, and… hold your breath, sunlight. While it will surely make you lose weight before one finishes counting to 10, the fact remains: How sustainable is this in the long run?