Don't try to cut out ALL sugar
"Not only is it totally unnecessary to cut sugar from your diet completely, but it's also really hard," says English. Banning it altogether might increase your risk of bingeing on it later on — and she points out that by classifying it as a forbidden food, you might actually make yourself want it even more.
Image via d3sign/Moment/Getty
Steer clear of detoxes
"If you see a diet plan that has 'detox' written on it, run," English advises. There is absolutely zero evidence to support any dietary manipulation actually 'detoxing' your body, as your liver, lungs, and kidneys are usually sorting this out for you, she explains. In fact, she says that most detoxes are just a period of enforced starvation, and that participants often end up gaining back whatever weight they might have lost in the long run.
Image via Maria Fuchs/Cultura/Getty
Don't juice cleanse
Similarly, you're probably going to want to skip out on juice cleanses."Any weight you lose is because you drastically cut your calorie intake for a time," said registered dietitian Lainey Younkin, MS, RD, LDN, founder of Lainey Younkin Nutrition. Plus, as she points out, juice doesn't actually "cleanse" anything — you're basically just drinking a bunch of sugar.
Image via FGorgun/E+/Getty
Don't try to change your pH
"There is no one single food that can change the pH of your blood — and if it did, it'd be because it was poisonous and you were dying," says English. She further explains that the cells in our body all operate within different tight pH ranges — and if those change even a little bit, they stop working. So that alkaline diet? Yeah, it's probably not going to do much.
Image via Westend61/Getty
