10 Diet Crazes That Are Overhyped, Unhealthy or Just Don't Work!

There are all kinds of diets out there. Some are good, some are bad, and some are just plain ugly. Almost everyone seems to have fallen for the diet hype in some way, and people are counting carbs, avoiding fats, drinking protein shakes, and doing all sorts of crazy things to lose weight and keep it off. While there are a lot of silly diet options out there, the 10 below are the worst of the worst!:

1. Diets that focus only on a specific food group or item.

"Eat only cabbage soup"lose weight and feel great!" Yeah. You might want to stay away from that one. Ditto for a diet where you can only eat peanut butter, grapefruit, or or any other single food group. If a diet takes an entire food group away from you, it's probably not a good choice.

2. The restrictive diet with the 'cheat day.'

With this diet, you can eat all you want one - and only one - day a week. The rest of the week, you essentially have to eat like a bird. Sure. That's good for you. Just get your body used to a state of malnutrition for six days and then load it full of fat, carbs and calories. We doubt your stomach would appreciate that, and your heart probably isn't thanking you, either.

3. The Vegan diet.

We know, there are a lot of vegans out there, and many of them are actually quite healthy. That's because they've learned how to do it right. They know what to eat and what supplements to take to get their nutrition. People who do it as a fad don't bother to do their research on it, so they just end up eating salad, fruit, nuts and nothing else. Remember about needing all the food groups? You can't be a vegan without research. Not healthy.

4. The "Detox" diet.

That's a crazy one. Liver and colon flushes, hormone injections, and more. No, thanks. Your body is already set up to cleanse itself and balance itself. It doesn't need all those things. All they'll do is make you feel sick because you just ate/drank/or had an enema of something very unpleasant. If you feel sick and you can't eat you might actually lose a couple pounds, but that's definitely not the way to do it.

5. Any diets that claim to have "miracle" foods or ingredients.

No one food group can give you weight loss, and neither can one specific food – remember? It's the whole 'one food group' thing again!

6. Fasting or severely low-calorie diets.

These sound great. If you don't eat, you'll lose weight. True to a point, but your metabolism will also slow down because you're not taking in a lot of calories. Metabolic rate doesn't speed up as fast as it slows down, so when you start to eat normally again, you'll gain weight faster and easier than you did before. That kinda defeats the purpose, don't you think?

7. Any diet that sounds too good to be true.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. No diet out there has a special food or a special secret that can suddenly make you skinny. It doesn't exist, no matter how much they tell you it does. They're trying to sell you something. We are not.

8. Diets designed for a specific number of days.

The three-day weight loss plan or the 10-days until you're skinny plan or anything like that are just fads. They won't work for you, or for anyone else. That doesn't mean that you won't lose weight, but you won't keep it off. You can't stay on those kinds of diets because they're so unhealthy, so the weight just comes right back.

9. Any diet that belongs to a celebrity.

Do you really think they're endorsing that diet plan for free? If someone paid you enough, wouldn't you say the diet worked, too?

10. Any diet where they send you the food

Any diet company that sends you food (and quite likely supplements as well) and/or say you don't need to do any exercise... Now you won't even get any exercise walking around the grocery store to buy the fattening food that you used to eat!

If you want to lose weight, it's very simple.

You have to eat less, and you have to eat healthier. Put down the cheese doodles and find something that's actually good for you. And for goodness sakes, get off the couch!