Fad Diets: The Weirdest Side Effects They Don’t Warn You About

“I was on the train to work this morning and there was a moment where I actually thought I was going to s*** myself.”

No this comment wasn’t from someone thought they’d heard the Game of Thrones finale spoiler.  

This was the experience of one woman (who may or may not work at Yahoo HQ) who was trying out a new detox diet that consists of drinking laxative tea before bed in an effort to lose weight and ‘cleanse’ the body.

It seems like we’re determined to try out these fad diets no matter what the side effects but did you know about some of these?

1.    Cleansing diets, like the Master Cleanse and Bootea give you diarrhoea. Like, seconds to get to a toilet before you feel it running down your legs a la Gary Lineker during Italia ’90 diarrhoea.

2.    On the Master Cleanse, as well as being in a constant state of pooping, surviving on a diet of just maple syrup, lemon juice and cayenne pepper leaves you feeling like a shell of a person.

3.    The cabbage soup diet, which consists of eating nothing but cabbage soup for a week, unsurprisingly makes you fart. A lot.

4.    Both the Atkins and Dukan diets have the opposite effect, giving the dieter constipation and chronic bad breath. How appealing.

5.    Juice cleanses have been all the rage recently but be careful what juices you choose. Too much carrot juice can turn your skin orange. Seriously. Carrots contain a pigment called carotene and too much of it leads to carotenosis i.e. orange skin.

6.    The Paleo diet professes that if a caveman couldn’t eat it, then neither should we, based on the water-tight theory that Neanderthals were the peak of human health. Ironically, eating large quantities cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower has been linked to hypothyroidism, which can cause you to gain weight. The very thing you’re trying to avoid.

7.    Intermittent fasting, like on the 5:2 diet, restricts dieters to just 500 calories two days a week. What they don’t tell you is that 500 calories is such a pittance that you’re basically useless on those days and don’t have the energy to exercise. Which is kind of important if you want to lose weight and get healthy.

8.    Diet pills with lots of caffeine like Capsiplex have been known to give heart palpitations when taken for months at a time. Is it really worth it?

Have you ever had any weird side effects from diets? Let us know on Twitter.

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