oday, Amit Jain can eat only watermelons.

Tomorrow, he may also have lots of veggies, but nothing else.

Mrs Dixit loves butter and chicken, but religiously avoids potatoes, bread and rice like the plague. 

Rina can indulge in lots of cabbage soup for seven days and hopes to lose five to seven kilogrammes. 

Amit, Mrs Dixit and Rina, in a mad rush to lose weight, are rigorously following the General Motors, Atkins and The New Cabbage Soup Diets respectively.

These are just three of the highly publicised Western 'fad' diet regimes gaining popularity in India.

But do these diets actually deliver the promised results?

A review of America's ten most popular weight loss programmes threw up some insightful results:

i. None of the prescribed plans actually offered proof of shedding the pounds and, more important, keeping them off, except for the Weight Watchers plan.

ii. A study indicated that participants lost around five percent (about 4.5 kilos) of their initial weight in six months through the Weight Watchers programme. They also kept off about half of it for at least two years.

iii. The authors of the review could not find any published evaluations about LA Weight Loss, another big fad diet plan.

iv. Self-help programmes like Overeaters Anonymous and Take Off Pounds Sensibly also did not have sufficient evidence to prove their effectiveness.

Note: Researchers who conducted the review also stressed that the lack of scientific evidence should not be viewed as an attack on diet programmes.

Which brings us back to square one: should you go on a fad diet or not?

That is for you to decide. But only after you have all the facts together.

Can you keep the weight off?

Besides the lack of concrete evidence to back actual weight loss, there is another point to ponder: After completing your diet, will you be able to successfully maintain weight loss? Or will you promptly pile on the kilos at lightning speed?

Says dietician Rohini Diniz, "Most fad diets do not make any allowance for maintaining the weight that is lost. And, eventually, most dieters find the diet too monotonous to stick to for the long term. They then resort to 'bad' dietary habits again. Instead of merely yielding short-term results, a diet programme should help you improve your habits, so you can maintain the weight lost."

Next, are fad diets really healthy?

Fad diets and your health

The health implications of these diets have always been at the helm of controversy.

According to dietician Seemaa Tarneja, who runs her own practice in Mumbai, the biggest drawback of most diet plans is that the nutrient content of the food is imbalanced.

"The Atkins diet," she says, "makes your body completely dependent on proteins. In the GM diet, you may eat only watermelon one day. But the following day, you may feel constipated because there is no fibre in watermelon."

She emphasises that eating in moderation is healthier, except if you are extremely obese and must have certain restrictions. But, again, a complete family of nutrients cannot be denied to an individual, since it may lead to health problems later.

To eat or not to eat?

Seemaa and Rohini suggest these guidelines for weight loss:

1. Focus on improving your dietary habits by having all nutrients in moderation.

2. Make sure you have a balanced diet. This ensures that you get your daily dose of minerals, vitamins, fibre, etc.

3. Consult a qualified dietician to work out a diet plan tailormade to suit your lifestyle, body type and health condition.

4. Exercise regularly.

The next time you stumble on a diet that suggests you have only bacon and eggs, or resort to a new breathing technique, or to sleep off those calories to lose weight, think again!

After weeks and months of abstaining from this, that and the other, all you may end up with is a humongous appetite!