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Listener Question: Are There Any Good Fad Diets?

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Listener Question: Are There Any Good Fad Diets?

Mar 23, 2017

We’ve all heard the claims of fad diets. Cut carbs and lose 20 pounds. Drink nothing but smoothies and drop a dress size. Eat like a Neanderthal and get in the best shape of your life. But are any of these fad diets actually healthy, or even safe, for you to be on? Kary Woodruff, registered dietitian at University of Utah Health, warns of the unhealthy red flags to look out for before starting a fad diet.

Episode Transcript

Announcer: Need reliable health and wellness information? Don't listen to the guy in the cube next to you, get it from a trusted source, straight from the doctor's mouth. Here's this week's listener question on The Scope.

Interviewer: Answering this week's Listener Question is Registered Dietician, Kary Woodruff. Kary the question, "Are fad diets safe and healthy for me to be on?"

Kary: It's a great question and it's really hard to say specifically one diet is, one diet isn't. But here my recommendation is, is the diet sustainable? So is this something that you could see yourself doing, you know, one to 10 years from now? Some things to kind of consider, or red flags I should say for less healthy fad diets would be diets that cut out entire food groups, right. So if a diet cuts out greens, and dairy, and legumes, right, that would . . .

Interviewer: Like the smoothie diet's probably not a thing that you should be trying then.

Kary: Right, correct. And or a diet that asks you to eat the same thing every day. Right, that's not very sustainable.

Interviewer: Nuts.

Kary: Yeah, we get bored of it, right? So that's not going to be very sustainable. Is there something that we can do in our day to day life that includes social functions, right? So if we're avoiding social functions because it doesn't accommodate our diet, then I would challenge that's not a very sustainable approach.

Interviewer: So pretty much the answer's no, right? There are no good, safe fad diets out there?

Kary: Typically not, it usually comes back to balance, moderation, and variety.

Announcer: Have a question? Ask it. Send your listener question to hello@thescoperadio.com.