It always amuses me when people describe the Paleo Diet as a fad diet. Given that we’ve only been eating our current diets of junk and processed foods for the last two or three generations, isn’t the Standard American (or Australian) Diet the real fad?!

You can’t really argue with paleo, I mean who could possibly say not eating processed foods is harmful? The true fad diets out there – well, that’s a whole different story! Here are my all time favourite Fad Diets. Warning: some of them are seriously weird – and outright dangerous…

The Cabbage Soup Diet

Perhaps the most popular diet on my list, it amazes me how many people have tried this. I guess it’s only popular because it’s viewed as a quick-fix thing. I mean who wants to actually eat healthy long term?

Basically, for 7-days you eat cabbage soup, drink water and can also add in a bit of fruit (not into the soup – that would be even more disgusting), veg, skim milk and a bit of brown rice. After seven days, people of the cabbage soup diet are promised that they’ll have lost loads of weight, though in reality it’s going to be water weight, not long term fat loss.

The Fletcherism diet

Basically lose loads of weight and avoid ill health, by Fletcherism. All you have to do is chew every single mouthful 32 times (not 31, or 33, or presumably it won’t work). I gather it works just as well whether you chew your grass-fed beef, or your Big Mac – so long as it’s 32 times.

The Baby Food Diet

Instead of eating normal, age appropriate food swap some, or all of your meals for a jar of baby food. I’m not kidding, people actually do this. What’s suitable for a baby, probably isn’t so good for a grown-up….

The Master Cleanse Diet

This was so popular a couple of years ago, remember? Another short-term fix, you’re supposed to swap eating, for a drink made from lemon juice, water, maple syrup and cayenne pepper. It supposedly detoxes the body and magically removes excess fat. Yeah, sounds very sustainable.

The Hallelujah diet

Oh yes, there’s even a religious diet. All you need to do to lose weight is eat what Adam and Eve ate in the garden of Eden. Raw fruit and vegetables are in, wholegrains are good, and bizarrely vitamin B12 supplements. They must be a whole lot older than I realised….

The Vision Diet

Eating too much of the wrong thing? All you need to do is wear blue lensed glasses, to make food look as unappealing as possible and stop you eating it. Obviously. You don’t do this?

The Cotton Wool Diet

Dieting plans been led astray by feelings of hunger? Apparently some people actually eat cotton balls to fill their stomach and prevent them from eating real food. On what level is this supposed to be a good idea?

The Parasite Diet

Believe it or not, you used to be able to buy pills that were claimed to contain tapeworms! You’d swallow the pills, with the intention that your new parasite infection would eat all the food in your stomach, before you could digest it.

Breatharianism

Eating’s cheating… Breatharianists believe you can live on just spirituality and sunlight. They claim not to ever need any type of food, or even water. Scientists have not been able to confirm the claims… surprised?