Beverly Hills Diet Disadvantages

A fad diet, the Beverly Hills Diet has been around for quite a while. Creator Judy Mazel first conceived of the weight loss plan in 1981, although she republished it and brought it up to date in 1996. It's somewhat complicated, and like other fad diets, it may not be nutritionally sound. Mazel was not a trained nutritionist and she had no medical background. She published a diet that worked for her, reportedly helping her to lose 72 pounds, but it has some significant drawbacks.

Concept

The Beverly Hills Diet is a strict routine, limiting both what you can eat and when you can eat it. Mazel's premise was that if you eat more than one food at a time, your body will not be able to digest it all, and the undigested food will turn to fat. This has no basis in fact or research. The diet includes eating fruit almost exclusively, and only one kind of food per meal or snack. You must wait an hour before eating any other fruit, or two hours before you eat any other kind of food. Once you eat other food, you can't go back to fruit until the next day. Once you eat protein, you're virtually restricted to that for the rest of the day. Only 20 percent of the food you consume afterward can be in the form of carbohydrates.

Calories

The Beverly Hills diet is a very low calorie diet. Such diets are not recommended unless your physician specifically advises one for a medical condition that requires significant and quick weight loss. According to Dietspotlight, a website that reviews diets and dieting aids, the Beverly Hills Diet restricts you to about 800 calories a day. According to MedlinePlus, women need at least 1,200 calories per day, and men need at least 1,500.

Lack of Nutrients

The disadvantage of any diet that focuses on one kind of food is that it can miss out on considerable vitamins and nutrients. One single food is unlikely to contain everything your body needs. The Beverly Hills Diet restricts you to fruit alone for 10 days and does not permit any protein until the 19th day. But your immune system relies heavily on protein, and you need it for muscle and tissue repair and maintenance as well.

Side Effects

The most noted side effects of the Beverly Hills Diet are digestive troubles resulting from the high concentration of fruit it requires. In such quantities, fruit can cause both diarrhea and stomach upset. Reducing your calorie intake so severely might result in fatigue and can put you at risk for developing gallstones, according to the Weight Control Information Network.