So we’ve all heard about Beyoncé’s new 22 day vegan delivery service and Angelina Jolie’s ancient grain obsession by now. Many poeple may have tried to follow these or other celebrity diets in hopes to lose weight, clear skin, tightened energy, etc. But is depriving yourself of food during a master juice cleanse or eating your body’s weight worth of beans because some celebrity mentioned it in an interview a great idea? Probs not, and here’s why:
1. Many celebrity diets ignore nutritional experts advice.
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I hope no one is under the impression that any properly qualified and educated nutrition professional would recommend some of the crazy things that celebrities do to lose weight. Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist and give you fast weight loss tips, but a dietitian will help you make some better food choices and tell you to increase activity to lose weight – they won’t recommend cutting out food groups on a whim like celebrity diets often do.
2. Celebrities have tons of money.
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Celebrities have no shortage of money to spend on fancy diet foods and supplements to make sure that they don’t starve and not completely miserable and malnourished. I don’t know about you, but I don’t exactly have the cash lying around to afford to pay $990 for 20-day packages like Martha Hunt does. If you’re not making as much money as celebrities do, how can you expect to afford their food and supplements? The pressure to do so could also make people feel crappy about “not being able to afford healthy food“, and that’s just not right.
3. Celebrities have help.
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I know your mom is always your number one fan and your roommate is always there to wipe your tears and make you laugh, but even they can’t be the equivalent of a team of professionals when it comes to insane diets. Beyoncé, Brady & Giselle, and most other famous dieters all have professionals to make their food for them, clean up the mess, do their shopping, do their research and monitor their health for them.
4. Their diets can lead to self hate and misery.
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Self hate is a problem with many diets, but especially ones started by famous people. First of all, the motivation is to lose weight, which is not the same thing as being healthy and giving your body unrealistic expectations can be really mentally damaging. You are what you eat, and mental health is no exception. Celebrity diets also tend to be restrictive or focus on only one type of food, and not being able to eat what you want in moderation is just sad. I know I would be miserable if I had to trade peanut butter for kale juice.
5. Celebrities have high stakes.
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Even though it doesn’t look like it, when it comes to diets celebrities actually do have a lot to lose, career-wise. They often need to lose weight fast for movie roles or for photo shoots, like Beyoncé did for Dreamgirls and Cara Delevigne did for the Bad Blood music video. High stakes lead to drastic measures that really don’t need to be taken by the general public. Many celebrities also need to try to sell their diets in a books or in subscriptions, so of course they’ll promote their own lifestyle whether or not it’s safe and effective.
6. You do you.
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What works for a celebrity won’t necessarily work for you. Everyone is different and loses weight differently. So Blake Lively doesn’t drink coffee and Selena Gomez likes Cheetos, who cares? You should eat the foods you eat because YOU want to, not because famous people do. And remember, no diet is the best diet.