There are  no situations in which any extreme diets are good for your body unless you suffer from a medically prescribed condition. The body needs a certain amount of calories  per day because you, right now, even sitting down are burning energy.

Our resident nutrition blogger explains the dangers of dieting

A lot of people hear about minimal calories you need per day and that the more calories you drop the more weight you will lose, but this is simply not the case.

How do I lose weight safely? 

As a common example, let’s take a 75 kg man, who works in an office and goes to the gym two times a week. The calories he would need per day are around 2500 when not going to the gym. This will ensure all the organs and brain function normally.

Therefore to lose weight, you cannot starve the body otherwise parts will start shutting down.

The magic number is 500 calories per day less to lose between one to two pounds per week.

There will always be the person who lost nine pounds in a week with no side effects, but for every one person there is 1,000 who lose nine pounds and either get ill from bad dieting or just don’t keep the weight off.

The body has to be allowed to adapt as it takes a while to get used to the increased calories in the first place (overweight) so it takes a while to get used to less calories. IT'S A SLOW PROCESS!

Lets look at the diets in greater detail and see where the problems and benefits with each are:

Atkins

This diet allows for high protein and fat, but NO carbs, which means energy mess up! Each component of the three above food groups are essential to a healthy diet and to cut one out is bad news!

The science behind this diet is that the high protein and high fat will make you feel fuller and therefore reduce total calorie intake. This is a good idea in theory but reduction of carbs completely will cause severe spikes in energy levels, often leading to mood swings and terrible sleeping patterns.

The diet will cause weight loss but the energy level mess ups are not worth it.

GI Diet

The GLYCAEMIC INDEX diet is based on carbohydrates and how full they make you feel for a certain time throughout the day. The theory being that the longer you feel full for, the longer you will go without wanting anymore calories.

The lower glycaemic index of the food, the slower it breaks down in your body and makes you less hungry.

This is one of the more effective diets I can recommend, as it allows all food types and mainly focuses on filling yourself only with lower GI foods and lowering your weight in a healthy manner.

Detox Diet

Relying on juices, fruit, salad and water, it is a typical detox diet and a way to cut out all the genetic pesticides and little nasties that get onto our food.

But this diet is awful for your system long term, it will cause rapid weight loss but your body will go into hibernation and hold onto every calorie it can.

What also happens is that because you are only allowing yourself few food types and a lot of high fibre foods. Your digestive system may become affected and stool and urine may become irregular. Also people cannot usually fit this into their life easily as it takes a lot of preparation and a lot of self control... definitely one to steer clear of!

In summary, there is always someone who knows someone else who lost X amount whilst not exercising and looks great. But for most normal people just listening to that voice in your head will be enough.

The body will tell you when it’s full if you let it and gradually take you towards the body you want. Include exercise and one final word... there is no quick fix, all it takes is self control and will power!