Fad diets are so alluring with their promises of fast weight loss and their skinny celebrity followers. The problem is that they’re often unhealthy and make outrageous claims that are untrue. Here’s a roundup of the some of the most strict and downright ridiculous diets around and the famous names that champion them.

Pain in the Rear

Sure, the Martha’s Vineyard Diet calls for mud treatments, but following it is no day at the spa. You’ll also be drinking most of your meals and enduring weekly colonics and enemas. Robin Quivers does look great since she tried the detox, but with all those trips to the spa, this diet is heavy on the pocketbook and light on lasting results.

Soup’s On … Always

All soup all the time should be the motto of the Cabbage Soup Diet. Sarah Michelle Gellar is a famous follower of the plan in which you slurp soup made from a watery mix of cabbage, peppers, onions and celery for seven days. It’s no surprise that you lose weight because you’re not eating much, but after your soup fast is over, the pounds pile back on.

Tart Diet

Beyonce revived interest in the Master Cleanse when she used the juice-fast to slim down for ‘Dream Girls.’ Drinking a mix of maple syrup, lemon juice, water and cayenne pepper for days is hardly a healthy approach to weight loss. Even Beyoncé said she wouldn’t advise anyone follow her diet lead.

Diet in Vein

Any diet that requires a test of your blood type raises our eyebrows. And depending on the results, you could be stuck shopping for your new all-veggie diet or one where the main component is veal. Why? the Blood Type Diet claims certain foods react with differently with various blood types. A better idea than eating politically incorrect meat? Cut back on your portions.

Funny Face

Voluptuous Kate Winslet swears the Facial Analysis Diet helped her drop baby weight. On this wacky plan, a so-called facial analyst proposes a special diet based on food intolerances revealed in the texture of your skin, eyes and hair. But the only reason this diet ever works is because people tend to drink more water, get more sleep and eat more fruits and vegetables while on it.

Sour Diet

Claming it has magical fat-burning properties, the Grapefruit Diet calls for eating half a grapefruit or drinking a glass of its juice before every meal and has lured in the likes of Brooke Shields and Kylie Minogue. It sounds easy enough, except that your meals are also miniscule. In total, you’ll consume a scant 800 calories a day on this starvation diet — which is the real secret to its temporary weight loss results.

Royal Flush

Even birth control pills are off limits on the Fat Flush Diet, which aims to detoxify your liver and increase your fat-burning potential. Prepare for two weeks without alcohol or caffeine and barely any carbs on it; instead you’ll load up on flaxseed oil, a cranberry juice and water concoction and lots of supplements. Not only is there no evidence that the diet results in weight loss, there’s no proof that you even need to flush your liver.

Cuckoo for Coconuts

Another contender in the realm of the single-food eating plan is the Coconut Diet. Jennifer Aniston swore by this plan where you load up on coconut oil (Almond Joy doesn’t count), which is supposed to boost metabolism and help you lose weight quickly. Most experts agree you should limit coconut in your diet because it’s rich in saturated fat which can raise cholesterol, so it’s best to avoid this one.

Fitness Phobic

If you hate to exercise then you’ll no doubt be tempted to try the Cardio Free Diet, which asserts that cardio workouts are bad for your health so you skip them altogether. The diet, which has fitness and nutrition experts up in arms for the author’s disregard of mountains of evidence that cardio workouts are essential to good health, is another case of an author making outrageous diet claims to sell more books.

Not-So Magic Pill 

When Britney Spears was spotted with a bottle of diet pills in an airport, she helped create a surge in sales of the appetite suppressant Zantrex-3. That, and other similar diet pill products may take some of the work out of weight loss, but with side effects like nervousness, sleeplessness, agitation and diarrhea, we’ll stick with the eating healthy and exercise for weight control.

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