The Christmas gifts are unwrapped, we've eaten our fair share of candy canes, and with 2022 on the horizon, it's just about time for one of our least favorite traditions. Yep, it's time again for the onslaught of every kind of advertisement promoting diets. Soon, no corner of the internet will be safe from ads for weight loss quick fixes and other toxic diet culture-promoting products. Even though there is so much scientific evidence that diets don't work, many people still get tempted by promises of fast weight loss.
It's hard to say if it is depressing or relatable to know that celebrities sometimes get sucked into extreme fad diets and goofy weight loss "tricks" just like the rest of us. These rich people, who have access to all of the best medical advice, personal trainers, and (let's be honest) plastic surgeons, have tried some deeply weird diet plans, so we're going to tell you all about them.
But please note, this is not a recommendation to try any of these plans! Actually, consider it the opposite. We suggest starting the new year (or any other time of year) with a decision to stop dieting. Let's embrace self-love and all agree that we are not taking nutrition advice from reality stars or Kardashians!
The Baby Food Diet
The premise of the baby food diet, created by problematic celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson, is that actual grown-up adults can lose weight by eating up to 14 jars of baby food per day. Yes — baby food instead of actual food that requires teeth to chew. Some celebs who've allegedly tried this plan include Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Lady Gaga.
The Master Cleanse
The Master Cleanse diet is as simple as it is stupid. For anywhere between four and 14 days, users skip real food and live on only a mixture of lemonade, water, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. Beyoncé famously confessed to Oprah that she once followed the plan, saying she used it to crash diet before a movie role. Others rumored to have used this dangerous plan (our bodies do, after all, need things like fiber and protein) include Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher.
The Cookie Diet
A diet that heavily features cookies? No wonder celebs such as Snooki, Jennifer Hudson, and Denise Richards were rumored to follow the plan, which involves replacing breakfast and lunch with water and special diet cookies. This plan is actually just a super-low-calorie plan in disguise, as those who strictly follow it end up eating about 1,000 calories a day, which is about the right amount of calories for a toddler and not a healthy adult.
The M Plan
The M Plan diet, allegedly followed by Katy Perry and Kelly Osbourne, claimed to help with spot-specific weight loss (which is not a thing) and called for users to replace one meal per day with a dish of plain, cooked mushrooms. This one isn't as dangerous as some others, but it's just kind of weird — and honestly, just mostly challenging if you aren't a fungus fan.
The Juice Cleanse
Lizzo fans were disappointed in 2020 when the usually body-positive star chronicled her 10-day juice cleanse. This fasting diet involves drinking only juices for 10 days and is supposed to act as a "reset" button, but mostly it just causes exhaustion, lots of pooping, and minimal weight loss that returns as soon as the user begins eating food again.
Eating Clay
Actress Shailene Woodley is no stranger to liking some kind of out-there ideas, including eating clay, which she claims has a detoxifying effect. We shouldn't have to say this, but let's be clear: Please only eat actual food and don't eat dirt, clay, sand, or anything else that nature uses as a floor!
The Five Factor Diet
Celebrity fans of the Five Factor Diet, who are said to include Kim Kardashian and Megan Fox, must have really loved the fives section of the multiplication table. This complicated plan calls for five meals a day, chosen from five categories of food (one of which is sugar-free drinks, which isn't actually a food) plus 25 minutes of working out at least five days a week. That may not sound so extreme, but the plan is also totally sugar-free, which is really restrictive.
The Color Diet
Sometimes there are diet plans that take a sensible idea (eating fresh, colorful, whole foods) and make it weirder than it needs to be. The color diet, which Christina Aguilera has followed, calls for users to only eat one color of food a day. So one day is all white food, the next is all red, and so on. Can't we just have a nice colorful salad?
The Daniel Diet
We all know that the Bible is one of the most important religious texts in the world, but to use it as a diet guide? Hmm, that's a little extreme. Chris Pratt is a fan of the so-called Daniel Diet, which is basically a restrictive vegan partial fast that lasts for 10 to 21 days.
The Sirtfood Diet
The Sirtfood Diet is a low-calorie diet (like 1,000 calories a day low) that replaces some meals with green juices and provides extremely limited and oddly specific options for the remaining meals (better love capers and parsley!). This diet is more popular in England, where both Adele and Pippa Middleton are said to have tried it.
The TB12 Diet
There are celebs who follow extreme diets and then there are celebs who invent their own extreme diets. Football legend Tom Brady is the creator of the TB12 Diet, which is where fun goes to die. This diet has a whole bunch of restrictions: no white flour, no white sugar, no olive oil, no tomatoes, no peppers, no dairy, and no eating until fullness. Yikes — that's a lot!
The Norwegian Fish Diet
She may be the queen of Christmas, but we're not going to let Mariah Carey plan Christmas dinner! In 2016, she told an interviewer that she only eats two foods per day: Norwegian salmon and capers. We hope she was exaggerating, because a diet of only fish and whatever the heck a caper is can't possibly be healthy or sustainable.
22-Day Vegan
A vegan diet can be an appropriate choice for those who are concerned about the modern meat industry and the environment, but there's no denying that it is pretty extreme to totally eliminate all animal products from a diet. Some celebs who've taken on that challenge include Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and DJ Khaled.
The Macrobiotic Diet
Celebs including Julia Stiles, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Madonna are said to be fans of the macrobiotic diet. This diet, which is based on the idea of trying to find a balanced life through eliminating processed foods, dairy, and white carbs, also calls for chewing every bite of food 50 times. Who has time for that?
The Paleo Diet
The paleo diet is a fairly common diet and that can make it easy to forget how extreme of a choice it is, but remember that any diet that treats bacon as healthier than oatmeal with fruit is kind of suspect. There have been a number of celebs who have tried this plan for weight loss, including Blake Lively, Kanye West, and Jessica Biel.
