Amanda Wilde (Host): You're looking for a way to shed a few pounds quickly and there are diets that promise weight loss can be easy and fast. Others say they detoxify your body, restore health, and reset metabolism. Are any of these fad diets a legitimate fix? Alyssa Frisby is a registered and licensed dietitian and faculty instructor for the Culinary Medicine Program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and she's here to separate fact from fiction as we discuss fad diets.

This is UAMS Health Talk, a podcast from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. I'm Amanda Wilde. Welcome, Alyssa!

Alyssa Frisby: Thank you for having me.

Host: Well, I think of fad diets as those trendy diets that regularly rise and fall in popularity. But as a nutritionist and a professional, how do you define fad diet?

Alyssa Frisby: I think you're pretty accurate in your description, especially as you talk about the rise and the fall, because we have seen many, many falls. But a fad diet is an eating plan that promises big and bold results. Most of the time that's a lot of weight loss quickly or a dramatic improvement in overall health. But fad diets fall for a reason. They are not sustainable. They're often not healthy eating patterns to have and they are heavily promoted. They usually pop up in a flash and people are quick to follow them, but they don't actually give you the results that they promise.

Host: And so, fad diets do generally make particular claims and promise certain results. And are you saying the success rate is zero?

Alyssa Frisby: I think the success rate has to happen somewhere along the line for somebody. I think nutrition is highly individualized and what works for one person may not work for someone else. So, I think fad diets become popular, because someone somewhere found something that worked for them and decided to promote it, and it doesn't mean that it's going to work for everybody else. It may mean that the plan isn't sustainable, or accessible, or it just may be that person's reaction to following the eating pattern, and it's not something that can be replicated for everybody else.

Host: I just read that the woman who formed Weight Watchers decades ago had lost weight on her own and then formed this group that was sort of a support group for overeaters and decided to monetize that. But she already had her results, so it falls right into what you are saying. Can we talk about what are some examples of fad diets? Like nowadays we hear about intermittent fasting or Atkins or keto, which don't sound like crash diets. And also, we hear about branded diets where you have to buy in and buy special foods or have membership in an organization. Do those fall under the fad diet umbrella?

Alyssa Frisby: They absolutely do. Fad diets can look like those quick fixes, or those programs you have to buy into, or they could look like actual healthy diets. But there may be a few components of the plan or the diet that are unrealistic, or that make unfounded claims like particular food groups are unhealthy or particular foods are unhealthy when really there's no research or scientific evidence that those actual foods are unhealthy.

So, I'll give you some examples. You may remember the cabbage soup or the grapefruit or the hard boiled egg diet. That's typically what people think of when they think of a fad diet. One of those that is completely unrealistic. You eat the same food all the time and you're going to lose weight or you're going to improve your health. Things like the master cleanse where you have the water, the maple syrup, the cayenne pepper, and the lemon juice and you drink that, and you're going to lose 20 pounds in 10 days like Beyonce did. So, some of those are easier to identify as a fad diet.

Some diets like Whole30 will sound like they're healthy. They will claim that if you only eat these certain foods and you eliminate all of these bad foods, you're going to improve your health outcomes and be healthier overall. But those are also really restrictive diets. And if you fail to follow the plan, you have to start over and you really shouldn't be trying to follow a healthy eating pattern that isn't sustainable, especially if you feel like a failure and you have to start over if you're eating a food that may be healthy, but the plan says it's not, so you can't have it.

Things like the Atkins diet are also considered fad diets. The Atkins diet you may remember is a low-carb diet. So, it's kind of the precursor to keto. And our bodies run off of carbohydrates. They're the body's preferred source of energy, the easiest for our body to break down. And by restricting or eliminating those carbohydrates, we're not giving our body the energy that it needs. And we're also excluding some key nutrients like fiber. You can only get fiber from carbohydrate-containing foods. So if you eliminate carbohydrates, you're not getting enough fiber, which can lead to a whole host of negative health outcomes.

Host: As omnivores, it sounds like fad diets can cause us more health problems,

Alyssa Frisby: Right. We've seen an increase in high blood pressure, in high cholesterol with things like the ketogenic diet, which is another very low-carb diet. So, you may think, "Oh, I'm eliminating carbohydrates. I can lose weight quickly. But if you're not eating carbohydrate-containing foods, you're eating more animal-based foods, which have more saturated fat, which can negatively impact our blood pressure and our cholesterol. So, you may be losing weight, but are you subjecting your body to potentially have negative health outcomes, because of the foods that you're not eating or the foods that you are eating?

Host: Which definitely negates the weight loss. If you do lose weight on a fad diet, and then you go back to your normal eating patterns, how often would the weight come back? Probably pretty often.

Alyssa Frisby: Right. Probably just as quickly as you lost it. You know, we don't gain pounds and pounds of weight overnight. It takes time. So, it also takes time to lose that weight. And there are ways to lose weight quickly. But often, the weight gets gained back, or you're putting yourself at a major health risk because you're doing something dramatic that is either going to shock your body or not provide your body enough nutrients.

Host: I think I also remember from the show, The Biggest Loser, that people later regained a lot of the weight that they had lost on the program.

Alyssa Frisby: Right. Something you said before really stuck out about going back to your regular eating habits. So, that's where fad diets get really tricky, is you stray away from your normal eating pattern and that may be something that's beneficial, like maybe you are making better food and health choices. But if you know that you're going to go back to your regular eating pattern, then the fad diet isn't even worth trying, because you're going to get the same results that you've been having across your lifespan if you're just going to return back to the way you were eating.

Host: So, there is no miracle, Alyssa. Darn.

Alyssa Frisby: Not unless you want to spend lots of money

Host: For surgery?

Alyssa Frisby: For surgery, for new weight loss drugs. You mentioned before, Amanda, that you've seen programs where you typically have to buy something in order to follow a particular diet or an eating pattern. And that's where we see a lot of these diets, especially fad diets, coming from. If someone found success, they found a way to monetize it and that is how they're making a living. And other people may not be able to follow those diet plans or they may not get the results, but they're going to pay to try.

Host: Well, it feels like deep down, we all know there's no quick fix. What do you think is the allure of fad diets?

Alyssa Frisby: Well, nowadays, I think it's the appeal of social media and you see short clips that provide a lot of information very quickly and everything looks beautiful and glamorous and you want to try Right? Okay. to follow that lifestyle or you think something is achievable just because of what you see for a few seconds in front of you.

I think the promise of it doesn't take a long time and you don't have to work hard and here's exactly what you have to do is really appealing to some people. And then, I found that a lot of people really like just being told what to do and what not to do. So, it may seem like Whole30 is really hard and really restrictive to follow, but you do get a clear outline on that particular diet of what you should be eating and what you shouldn't be eating. And even though the why isn't really promoted, the how is promoted and people find that it's easy for them to follow. But we know that we can't eliminate foods and food groups, especially whole food groups, and still be healthy.

Host: But sometimes, that structure is appealing. Well, what are some real key elements for living a healthy lifestyle, diet-wise?

Alyssa Frisby: Having a good understanding of basic nutrition education is really important. So, understanding our calorie-containing macronutrients, the fats, carbohydrates, and proteins that our body needs to have energy, to function as we do everyday. So, understanding that we have to have those foods, we do get calories from those foods, is really important. And then, understanding what foods fall under each of those categories. We know that our plant containing foods are going to have carbohydrates. We know that we can get protein from both plants and animals. And we know that there are some healthy fats and there are some less healthy fats. So, having a good understanding of the types of foods that we should be eating and how much of those foods we should be eating is really, really important in in being able to create a healthy lifestyle and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Host: And how can people get help with getting our minds in the right space to do that, with finding that lifestyle? Like I said, we kind of know deep down fads don't work, but we really wish they will to the point that maybe we'll do them. So, how can we work with our minds to make that transition?

Alyssa Frisby: Working with a registered dietitian is going to be incredibly helpful if you have a lot of specific questions about nutrition. So, dietitians have to go through four years of school along with a master's level education and a dietetic internship to get experience in clinical nutrition and food and community nutrition. So, they are the experts. So, I recommend if you have questions working with a registered dietitian to get specific answers. But a good start is to take any of these nutrition claims that you may hear and do a little bit of research. See if there's any scientific evidence behind why certain diet patterns work or don't work. See if more than one person has been successful in following a healthy eating pattern. And then, try to get an understanding of what that healthy eating pattern should be. So, we know we need to eat our fruits and veggies and lean proteins. We know that we need to choose unsaturated healthy fats over saturated fats. We know we need to drink water and get adequate fiber, so 25 to 35 grams of fiber per day. A lot of people just don't know the basics. So, I think working with an expert, like a registered dietitian, and then making sure that the information that you're hearing and that you're choosing to follow is actually evidence-based scientific information and not just a claim that you may have heard about in a TikTok video.

Host: Well, Alyssa, thank you so much for dispelling some misconceptions of fad diets and for that long-term perspective on what we should look at in the role of food and healthy living.

Alyssa Frisby: Yes. Well, thank you for having me today.

Host: That was Alyssa Frisby, a registered and licensed dietitian and faculty instructor for the Culinary Medicine Program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. To find out more, you can visit culinarymedicine.uams.Edu. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out the entire podcast library for other topics of interest to you. This is UAMS Health Talk, a podcast from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.