Dietitians Susie Burrell and Leanne Ward reveal the two worst diets you can follow for your health

If you’re looking to shed weight this year, then you should avoid two popular diets that might do more harm than good, dietitians have claimed.

Susie Burrell and Leanne Ward – who are the co-hosts of the popular nutrition podcast The Nutrition Couch – highlighted extreme low calorie and detox diets as the ‘worst’ options you can follow if you want to lose weight long-term. 

‘On any given day, there are a number of different diets trending on social media or being aggressively advertised on TV, but when you’re a dietitian, there are a couple that do more harm than good and drive us crazy,’ Susie said.

EXTREME LOW CALORIE

The first you should steer clear of at all costs, the dietitians said, is an extreme low calorie diet – or one where you consume 500 or 800 calories per day.

‘I have most disdain for diets that promote severe calorie restriction, or anything less than 1,000 calories,’ Susie said.

‘I’m thinking diets like the HCG diet or fasting approaches. I cannot tell you how frustrated I get when I see a 90 or 100kg female who has been religiously following an 800 calorie diet.’

The reason why she hates this diet is because while it might initially give you a one or two kilo weight loss quickly, this will immediately plateau as soon as you inevitably fall off the wagon and eat more – and it can even lead to weight gain.

‘Remember, 800 calories is less than half what the average female requires on a day to day basis to get their nutrition,’ Susie said.

‘In the case of what it looks like, it’s a couple of boiled eggs and a slice of toast, a tuna salad at lunch and a piece of boiled fish and veggies for dinner, with maybe a piece of fruit as a snack – every single day.’

She said that it is ‘obvious’ it will give immediate returns, but then as soon as you stop the weight goes back on and quickly:

‘Metabolically, it does so much damage,’ Susie added. 

The reason why is because you’re teaching your body to make do with less, so it goes into starvation mode and then clings on to any excess fat it can when you start eating normally again. 

They said you need to avoid both as while they might produce results over the short term, the results never last – as you will always fall off the wagon and end up re-gaining the weight

DETOX DIETS

The second diet the dietitians absolutely hate is anything that involves the word detox. 

‘The lemon water diet, the green juice detox diet – any kind of detox is an absolute no go,’ Leanne said. 

‘The main reason why I hate them is because the weight loss is often just water weight or even muscle weight.’

Even if you follow a cold-pressed juice diet or lemon detox diet for a short period of time like two weeks, she said, you will lose a ‘lot of muscle mass’ – which isn’t good for either the look or feel of your body.

‘By all means, drink green juices if you want, but focus on great quality food and think about your nutrition,’ Leanne said.  

The dietitians are instead fans of balanced, 80/20 approaches – whereby they eat healthily 80 per cent of the time and allow themselves a little of what they love for the remaining 20 per cent.

Both Leanne and Susie try to fill their plates with a variety of protein, complex carbohydrates, vegetables, fruit and good fats like extra Virgin olive oil and avocado.

Then, if they want a piece of dark chocolate or a glass of red wine, they allow themselves 20 per cent of the time.