Over-Hyped Diets & Meals That Kill

The HCG Diet

Basically: Daily injections of the female pregnancy hormone, with a prescription via a doctor, or more sketchy ordered off the internet, all while eating a 500-calorie diet.

You could do daily injections of imagination, a 500-calorie diet in and of itself is going to cause you to lose weight. And not the healthy way. Sure, a low-calorie diet is the most recommended way to lose weight, but you have to cut those calories in a healthy and sustainable way, while giving your body the calories it needs. Calories are energy and fuel, and our bodies need those to simply operate, and yes, to lose weight. "[500 calories] is not enough calories to support normal brain function," says registered dietitian Rebecca Scritchfield in "HCG Diet: Look Elsewhere for Weight Loss."

Expert's Take: "We need energy, and calories provide our bodies with energy to survive and thrive. If you don't give your body enough calories, especially from carbohydrate-rich foods (that supply the brain with much needed glucose), it will retaliate by breaking down lean muscle mass to produce glucose to fuel the brain, red blood cells and entire central nervous system," says Elisa Zied, MS, RD, author of Nutrition At Your Fingertips and founder and president of Zied Health Communications, LLC. She continues that "If you don't fuel up by taking in an ideal number of calories each day--for most that's around 2,000 calories a day (though that number can vary based on age, gender, and activity level)--it'll slow down to utilize the few calories you're giving yourself; this slows metabolism, and your body will not be able to function properly at all--you'll have little energy and that'll be the least of your problems! This diet is the ultimate crash diet--just like you wouldn't crash your car on purpose, why would you crash diet with this type of thing/diet?"

Adds Mary Hartley, RD, MPH, and director of nutrition at Calorie Count, "Reputable studies refute the effectiveness of the hCG Diet and respected medical organizations warn against it. Still, it is freely promoted all across the Internet, and so buyer beware!"

For the rest of the most crazy diets of 2010, Click Here.

1. The Worst DessertUno Chicago Grill Mega-SizedDeep Dish Sundae

2,800 calories

136 g fat (72 g saturated)

272 g sugar

The troubling truth is this entire list of America’s Worst Foods could be  fueled solely by the Cheesecake Factory’s atrocious fare. No restaurant combines elephantine portion sizes with a heavy-handed application of cheap cooking fats more recklessly than the Factory folk, resulting in dishes like the 2,582-calorie Chicken and Biscuits and the 2,455-calorie French Toast Napoleon. But it’s a relatively healthy-sounding plate of shrimp pasta that wears the tainted crown, delivering to your bloodstream more saturated fat than you’d find in three packages of Oscar Mayer Center Cut Bacon and as many carbs as you’d slurp down from 1½ cases of Amstel Light. Gross.

For a list of the top 20 Worst Foods of 2010, Click Here.

1. The Worst Food in AmericaCheesecake FactoryBistro Shrimp Pasta

2,727 calories

78 g saturated fat

1,737 mg sodium

The troubling truth is this entire list of America’s Worst Foods could be fueled solely by the Cheesecake Factory’s atrocious fare. No restaurant combines elephantine portion sizes with a heavy-handed application of cheap cooking fats more recklessly than the Factory folk, resulting in dishes like the 2,582-calorie Chicken and Biscuits and the 2,455-calorie French Toast Napoleon. But it’s a relatively healthy-sounding plate of shrimp pasta that wears the tainted crown, delivering to your bloodstream more saturated fat than you’d find in three packages of Oscar Mayer Center Cut Bacon and as many carbs as you’d slurp down from 1½ cases of Amstel Light. Gross.