Day 13: The Fad Diet Diet

Today, as I was eating my string cheese and fruit, I had an interesting thought:  what if my diet (which is either called Live the Life or Kristi Approved, I am still not sure which) is a fad diet?  I really don’t think it is, mainly because it is missing the key ingredient of any fad diet:  lush promises of weight loss without any work or without any effort.  That is not this diet, though I did lose four pounds in the first week.  After I did my “resistance training” today I was supposed to run for 30 minutes.  My legs hurt so much I had to walk instead of run for fear that my legs would give out and I would have to be carted out of the gym on a gurney.  Needless to say, after almost two weeks or so, I am starting to realize that I have a lot of work left to do.

Fad diets, on the other hand, are really easy.  I have done a lot of fad diets over the years, none of which have really worked beyond the first week.  But that is the beauty of the fad diet.  The first week is always awesome.  You are excited about the idea (hey, who isn’t excited about losing a lot of weight without having to work at it), and usually you lose a ton of weight the first week (for me, this is between five and 12 pounds). 

A few months ago, I got a great idea that I am planning to write a book about:  The Fad Diet Diet.  Although I want you to pay for the book when it comes out, I will give you a sneak peek.  In theory, a fad diet usually works the first week or so, but then tapers off in effectiveness.  So, with the Fad Diet Diet, you completely change the diet you are on every week.   Even better, you can choose which of several diets you want to start with.  Personally, this is the order that I would go in:  the Atkins Diet (I did this one and lost about 8 pounds the first week), the Hollywood Diet (I haven't done this one before,  but they say that you can lose 10 pounds in 48 hours by eating cookies), Nutrisystem (I've never done this one, but a friend of mine has and she seemed to like it), the Cabbage Soup Diet (again, I haven't done this one), the T-Factor Diet (this one seems to be endorsed by Lance Armstrong's livestrong.com; I lost about 5 pounds on it in a week once), the Belly Fat Cure Diet (I lost 12 pounds in a week on this one), the South Beach Diet, and finally, the Pasta-Popcorn-Chocolate Diet (yes, there is actually a diet called this, but having followed this diet over the last ten years, I would not suggest it).  

Assuming that the average person loses about 5 pounds on one of these diets during the first week, I figure that between the eight diets, one could lose, on average, 40 pounds in eight weeks.   The beauty of the Fad Diet Diet is that every week, you completely change the diet, so you are excited, refreshed, and ready to try something new.  No boredom!  Even better, while some diets limit the types of food you can put into your body (for example, pretty much no sugar in the Belly Fat Cure), all you have to do on the Fad Diet Diet is make it one week without the food.  After that, you can go back to eating your favorite foods, so long as they aren’t banned by your next diet.

The details of the book aren’t put together yet, but as soon as they are, I will let you know.  In the meantime, if you have any questions about how the diet works, feel free to shoot me an email.