The Fad Diet Experiment

Talk of my eating habits has set my Facebook timeline ablaze this week. I knew I’d be blogging about this experiment, but I think now’s a good time to start.

I was recently at the home of a friend and colleague who has been on the Dukan Diet for over a year. I asked how much weight she was hoping to lose and how long she intended to be on the diet. She waxed on about how it was more of a “lifestyle” and you commit to the basic principles – one pure protein day per week and walking 30 mins a day – for the rest of your life. I don’t doubt that the diet works – I’ve seen her weight loss and noticed her track it every day (which is also required by the diet) on her notepad. I just added that I think that almost any diet will work for you – at least in the short term. Why? Because you’re focusing on your food and being intentional in a way that you typically aren’t. She didn’t agree and there are just some people you can’t argue with, so I dropped the topic.

The next day, over dinner with a friend, I shared this story and she essentially agreed. She also pointed out that many diets fail because of human error – we get bored or feel deprived and so we cheat. Then all the work goes out the window. So, right then and there over cocktails, nachos and short ribs, we made a decision – we’d test out fad diets. We’d only do each diet for a week so we wouldn’t get bored and we would stick to the diet. We later amended this to allow ourselves two cheat days per month. I’m thinking the cheat days are best placed at the end of one diet before starting another, rather than mid-week, given that we’re not following the diets for long.

This week is week one, we’re doing the 7 Day Diet. Next week we’ll be doing the Kashi Diet (our version of it).

This isn’t a food blog or a weight loss blog, but I think this is an interesting experiment and so far, as I mentioned, the response on Facebook has been overwhelming – the curiosity, the cooking tips, the encouragement. So, I decided to go ahead and blog about it here. When we’re done with each diet, I’ll recap the experiences of the week and share any observations.

I’m also open to input –

1) Which diets do you think we should try? As long as it doesn’t involve a food I’m allergic to or a food that makes me want to gag, I’m open minded.

2) Is weight information interesting to you? I’m not one of those people who has a problem sharing my weight or age. I WILL say that I am the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life, but I don’t obsess about my weight and the last time I weighed myself (before starting this diet) was sometime during the fall of last year. But if specific numbers are helpful, I’m happy to share.

I look forward to sharing the weekly updates with you. If you want more frequent updates on the process, you can follow me on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook (where I’ll make the diet posts public).