As you watch the snow quickly melt into swimsuit season, you might be looking for easy ways to lose the extra five pounds you’ve gained throughout the winter and excessive beer-filled late nights of the past semester. While seriously scouring Pinterest for ways to slim down fast, it seems that the list of diets and tactics is endless and confusing. One thing we know for sure, however, is that diets and cleanses seem to be all the rage in the year 2015. Are these types of crash diets really healthy or worth your time? Take a minute to examine these three diets that seem like the craziest ideas yet.
1. The 7-Day Cleanse
This cleanse can be completed in only 7 days, but it takes extreme dedication and absolutely no cheating. Each day has a specific type of food to eat, but only those from that specifically listed food group are allowed!
Source: My Hotel Wedding
This diet is supposedly going to help you lose 10 pounds in one week, but I won’t believe it ‘till I see it. I don’t know about you, but this sounds like a lot of work with a short-term outcome and a shortage of pizza.
2: The Military Diet
This 5-day diet has you feeling like you’re at boot camp when in reality, you’re barely able to make it up the stairs. Someone mentioned how they had lost seven pounds in only three days, but I’m a little skeptical—the diet includes very limited proportions of fruit, toast, tuna, green veggies, hard-boiled eggs, saltine crackers, cheddar cheese, and (ironically) vanilla ice cream. This diet is crazy because it incorporates so many random foods, but such specific portions of each. It would be hard not to cheat the system, and would be tempting to have that one extra cracker or another scoop of ice cream.
Source: The Repo Woman
3: The Three-Day Detox
Dr. Oz is the creator of this detox, which is supposed to cleanse your body, boost your metabolism and help you lose weight. It includes three different smoothies; one for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. These recipes incorporate kale, spinach, celery, flax seed, avocado, almond milk, butter and more. It seems like a doable feat because it only lasts three days. However, speaking from my own personal experience, the lunch smoothie is enough to make you quit halfway through the first day. The texture of the smoothies is what’s really hard to stomach, and there is no opportunity for even healthy snacks. If you want to get healthy before a vacation, I wouldn’t suggest this diet because it strongly tempts you to sneak sweets every chance you get.
These are just a couple of the crash diets I’ve seen, but there are so many more out there. Instead of forcing yourself to follow the strict rules of one of these and feeling hangry for the next week, just eat an extra salad and celebrate just a few short weeks until you can be rockin’ bikini all summer long.