Full Bar

Full Bar Diet - 1/5 Stars   Medium $$$$

. 

If you haven't seen the full bar commercial, check it out above. This commercial actually isn't too bad and makes you believe it could replace surgery some day

Here's my problem with Full Bar. You drink a large glass of water, eat the bar that looks like an oversized Rice Krispy Treat (I love those treats, so I'd be happy to make that my diet), then wait a little while before eating your meal. The full bar will fill up your stomach so you feel full after eating less food. No offense to the creator of Full Bar, but if you drink a large glass of water and eat a large rice krispie like substance before any meal you'll obviously feel more full before a meal! You don't have to necessarily by the full bar.

This contradicts what many diet experts claim about eating a certain number of calories a day to keep your metabolism up without your body storing excess fat due to the theory of starvation (explanation: starvation mode happens when your body doesn't consume enough calories/fat/food overall a day, meaning your body stores fat thinking it's not getting enough food each day or you're under high stress). You still have to consume enough nutrients and minerals each day to stay healthy.

Here's an experiment for you that I've already posted earlier: drink a large glass of water before a meal, wait 20 minutes then eat. Halfway through your meal drink another glass of water and finish eating. You'll feel more full plus increase your water intake which will help you in losing weight anyway.

Positives: Full Bar could be used as a diet starter plan to mentally trick yourself into thinking you have to eat less by visually seeing less food on your plate after consuming the Full Bar. Afterwards you could cut the Full Bar and eat the same amount of food. If your body feels full you've successfully tricked your brain into eating less and feeling more full without the Full Bar. Otherwise, no other positives.

Negatives: Expensive, uses common sense to lose weight, doesn't necessarily provide you with the nutrition you might be missing with eating less food. Remember, it's not necessarily eating less it's eating more healthy food and eating less junk/crap food. Eating a large amount of vegetables won't kill you, and the full bar doesn't have the nutritional value of vegetables. 


In my opinion the Full Bar is just a guy saying you should eat his food to expand in your stomach and eat less. It makes sense, but doesn't do much for you. The diet has you incorporate healthy food and extra water which will help you lose weight without the Full Bar.

Nutrisystem

Nutrisystem – 2 Stars – High $$$

Nutrisystem is effective at helping people lose weight because you eat their food and only their food like Jenny Craig. Nutrisystem focuses on the same idea of the hypoglycemic diets and they prepare the food for you. People do lose weight off the low calorie food provided. However, Nutrisystem does nothing to help you learn what foods to eat afterwards and doesn’t provide you with an exercise program or any type of diet program once you are done with their program. Personally I have seen amazing results from Nutrisystem go down the toilet when my friends and acquaintances go through the program; almost all of them gained more weight after the program than they had before they started Nutrisystem. If you decide to do Nutrisystem, my recommendations would be to plan out your diet by choosing an effective program to eat healthy, not to lose weight, but to maintain your weight. Visit http://www.nutrisystem.com for more information.

Jenny Craig

Image from http://www.jennycraig.com

Jenny Craig – 3.5 Stars – High $$$

Jenny Craig sends you food, you eat it and nothing else (well, I’ve heard different things, some people say you can eat a little but not much outside of their food). It’s very simple to follow, they have counselors and nutritionists there waiting to help you when you need it. I have never had the food, but I heard it is not the best tasting food out there. The cons to Jenny Craig are the price and the lack of nutritional help afterwards. I understand they are implementing programs to help people keep the weight off, which if true would increase my rating, but I have not seen anything as of yet to prove they do it effectively. Jenny Craig is good for someone that doesn’t have time to shop or cook for certain foods, and has the money to do it. Visit http://www.jennycraig.com/ for more information.

GI and Hypoglycemic Diets

GI and Hypoglycemic Diets – 4 Stars – Medium $$$

These diets focus solely on “good foods VS bad foods” and your blood glucose levels. The diet is very effective as it does teach and consult which foods are good and which are bad, and it has stages to detoxify your body and return to a normal state. However, the only con to the diet is the very difficult system to fit. Some of these diets want you to eat certain foods at certain times of the day, in a certain order at a single meal and are very complex in what you can and can’t eat. It is effective and should be used by someone looking to lose 30 pounds or so. Use a search engine to find all the information you can about these diets as there are many to choose from.

Fat Smash Diet

Image from http://www.fatsmashdiet.com

Fat Smash Diet – 3.5 Stars – Medium $$$

The Fat Smash diet gives you a list of allowable foods and tells you what to eat and what not to eat. There is a very effective plan to detox the body and rebuild it within 90 days. This diet does teach you how to eat and change your lifestyle, while increasing energy levels and health levels. However, this is a very strict and restrictive diet and should only be done by those with will power to avoid certain foods. If not followed 100% this diet is not effective. Go to http://www.fatsmashdiet.com/ for more information.

Fat Flush Diet – 1.5 Stars – Medium $$$

The Fat Flush diet basically starts you off at a low calorie diet with lean proteins, then slowly adds on more calories each week until you reach your maximum account. The book does teach you about foods that are good for you and how to prepare them. However, it’s just another low calorie diet that can be potentially harmful if not done correctly or if you do not consult your doctor. Again in my opinion, not recommended.

Cabbage Soup Diet

Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cabbage

Cabbage Soup Diet – 0 Stars – Low $$$

To starve yourself it’s not very expensive. However, this diet can be very harmful to your health. Of course you will lose weight because of the decrease in calories, but this diet does not teach someone how to change their lifestyle, can only be done for seven days, and who likes cabbage soup that much? Ewwww! Once you finish the diet you must wait approximately one month to do it again. In that month you can gain weight the weight back because you’re increasing your calorie intake again. This is a very unsafe diet and I would not recommend it personally.

Clean Food Diet – 4.5 Stars – Medium $$$

The Clean Food Diet is like Dr. Furhman’s diet in a way, however, it does allow more meat and animal products to be consumed daily. Eat fruits and vegetables (raw state is better) and exercise daily to get the body you want. If you eat healthy your body detoxifies itself and the craving for sugar and other process foods is decreased. Like many of the other diets, eat every 2-3 hours to make sure your body is not starving and your metabolism is increasing. Visit http://www.eatcleandiet.com/ for more information.

Atkins

Image from http://www.healthyblogging.net

Atkins – 2.5 Stars – High $$$

Many people take the Atkins diet to a whole level it is not: avoid all carbohydrates and eat lots of meat! I have never seen this information in an Atkins book. Atkins focuses on getting rid of bad carbs (simple carbs) and eating good carbs (complex carbs). However, keeping carbs consumption low is the key to this diet. The theory is that your body uses the easiest form of fuel to break down first before other forms. Fat is the hardest form of fuel for the body to break down so it is usually last. By limiting carbohydrates and increasing protein your body will break down more fat because other forms of fuel are limited. Beware that too much protein can cause problems with the kidneys and the digestive system, so if you choose Atkins do not go overboard on the meat. Go to http://www.atkins.com to learn more.

3 Hour Diet, Abs Diet, 8 Minutes diet

Image from http://www.everydiet.org

3 Hour Diet, Abs Diet, 8 Minutes diet – 3.5 Stars – Low $$$ (except for the books)

These diets claim the same thing that many other dieticians and books claim: eat healthy food every three hours so your body doesn’t feel like it is starving and your metabolism (the ability of your body to use energy) will increase to burn more calories and fat. Eat protein to build muscle so you use more energy with the increase in muscle mass (read my post about muscle burning fat to see how this works). In my opinion this physiologically makes sense, but you don’t have to buy a book to know this. Also, the food suggestions are common knowledge, not necessarily anything your mother didn't tell you to eat. The diet idea itself is, however, very effective.

Weight Watchers

Weight Watchers – 4.5 stars – High $$$

Weight Watchers is one of the most popular dieting programs available today, and for good reason. You sign up, they have meetings for you, support groups, an online software program that helps you track your progress, dieticians that help you meet personal goals and setup personal plans for you and your body and they have a system that seems to work wonderful so that you aren’t sacrificing good food for gross plastic tasting food.

The main idea behind Weight Watchers is a point system. You buy a book with a finished equation using your age, weight and gender to setup a plan on how much food you should eat to lose weight. The book also contains a very large library of foods and their point values so you don’t have to count calories and fat and other things that are tedious. As you lose weight you modify the amount of points you eat each day. Simple right!

The only con I see with Weight Watchers is that it doesn’t teach you the nutritional value of food (vitamins, calories, fat contents) for a lifetime. However, if you follow the Weight Watchers plan for as long as you live and you commit to it without fail, you will keep a constant healthy weight with the correct exercise program. For more information visit http://www.weightwatchers.com/index.aspx to see if this program is right for you.

Dr. Furhman's Diet

Image from http://drfurhman.com

Dr. Furhman’s Diet – 5 Stars – Medium $$$

Dr. Furhman’s diet plan consists of consuming fruits and vegetables as your main source of food each day and limiting animal products. The theory is that fruits and vegetables are full of micro-nutrients that help strengthen and maintain cells throughout your body, meaning you can reverse diseases and stay healthy without the need of excessive measures (prescription drugs and surgeries). Many animal products have macro-nutrients which do not benefit the body as much as micro-nutrients. He doesn’t say to avoid consuming animal products, he just says to decrease your dependency on animal products.

Dr. Furhman has his own food pyramid and nutrition charts that you can see at the link below that explains what foods are nutritionally valuable to your body. This is also a lifestyle change that must be followed forever (as any diet is)! He does offer foods and a membership just like other programs listed below, however, if you follow his basics you can see a very successful weight and fat loss routine take over your life to feel much happier and healthier.  For more information go to http://www.drfuhrman.com/ and see if this diet plan works for you.

Image from http://drfurhman.com

Review Intro

I have researched, joined and participated in many diet fad programs. Following is a list of programs I or one of my family members have done and my reviews on them. Remember that I am not associated with any of these programs, and these are my opinions and they do not reflect the effectiveness of the diet to your body specifically. If you are looking for a specific diet to review you can search the page, these are not in any particular order.

Diet fads are becoming increasingly popular with the obesity epidemic taking a strong hand in our society. Fad diets can help you lose weight, however, they can be harmful at the same time. Before you ever join a diet program consult a physician to confirm you are able to do so (this includes any exercise programs also).