New Year Diet Plans To Avoid in 2025

It’s that time. New Year’s Diet Plans are rife.

The “New Year, New Me” brigade is out in full force and you might be searching for New Year Diet Plans to keep up with your mates.

The truth is, diets don’t work. We rarely use the term “diet” at DARE because we’re trying to encourage a lifestyle change towards eating predominantly wholefoods. This is the way that our bodies want to eat and it can be sustained for life.

Most New Year Diet Plans will give you tools to drop weight quickly over a matter of weeks, but over time that weight will go straight back on because you’re simply not making any lifestyle change.

Some of the New Year Diet Plans You Might Be Looking At

We’re not here to criticise any diet or say your approach is wrong. But we do want to look at some of the main diets that make the New Year list and unpack how they work and why a wholefood approach is better.

The first rule is that the best “diet” is one you can stick to. And as you’ll see, many of the New Year Diets that you see online are not a long term solution. They simply encourage fast weight loss, which is not conducive to long term results.

Let’s unpack some of the main new year diet plans that you might be considering.

5 New Year Diet Plans

1. Keto 

Fancy not eating a proper serving of carbs again? Like, ever.

No, us neither.

Keto, short for ketogenic, is a diet that limits carbohydrates to enter a state of ketosis. This forces the body to burn fat for fuel as it doesn’t have enough carbohydrates.

Keto diets typically limit carbohydrates to less than 50 grams per day. To put that into perspective that would be 2 small potatoes. A DAY. It’s not many carbs.

Carbs are good for us. They give us fuel, power amazing workouts and encourage the production of serotonin. A life without carbs can feel a little sad and generally doctors won’t recommend a keto diet for longer than 6 months due to the negative side effects.

Some of these sides effects include:

• Dry mouth and bad breath
• Fatigue or sleep changes
• Decreases in exercise performance
• Muscle spasms and cramps
• Appetite suppression
• Change in bowel movements

As a Harvard study recently claimed:

“It’s advertised as a weight-loss wonder, but this eating plan is actually a medical diet that comes with serious risks.”

But aside from the risks, you won’t be able to sustain it for long. Many studies have proven that the keto diet is fundamentally unsustainable and people often regain the weight and then some once they stop doing it. 

DARE RATING: 3/10

2. Low calorie diets

Nothing pains us more than when a client comes in and has been eating 1000 calories a day for years.

Why? Because extreme low calorie diets mess with your metabolism, hormones, fat burning capacity and mental health. They have long term risk and cause damage beyond what you can see on the surface.

Yes, you might lose weight short term. But the habits you start picking up and the damage done to your body will eventually catch up with you. You will almost certainly put the weight back on once you eat normally again, and will have nasty side effects like brittle nails and hair, low energy and hormonal issues.

The aim of the game should be to eat as MANY calories as possible while still burning fat. Of course, you will need to be in a calorie deficit to burn fat but this doesn’t mean you need to go hungry and starve yourself.

We have women at DARE who eat 2500-3000 calories a day and have shredded physiques. This is because we have turned their bodies into fat burning machines. You won’t believe how much food you can eat once you’re eating wholefoods and have an efficient metabolism.

DARE RATING: 1/10

3. Low fat

Low fat diets aren’t great. 

That said, manipulating fats within a healthy range can allow you to lower your calorie intake overall and this can lead to healthy fat loss.

Meanwhile, diets that remove fat completely can lead to vitamin and mineral deficiencies because your body needs fat to absorb vitamins A, D, E, and K. They also play a large role in hormone regulation.

You have to be really careful and know what you’re doing to have a low fat diet, because a lot of the products that remove fat are highly processed.

Low fat dairy, for example, often contains processed ingredients, stabilisers and added sugars. This makes it lower in calories and fat but not necessarily conducive to fat loss. 

We know, it doesn’t make sense! Low fat diets won’t necessarily make you lose fat. 

In fact, the opposite can be true. You need to eat fat to burn fat and natural fat sources like butter, ghee and avocado are amazing for you.

Don’t cut out your fats!

DARE rating: 3/10

4. Intermittent fasting

This is really the best of a bad bunch when it comes to New Year Diet plans.

Intermittent fasting minimises the windows in which you eat food, thereby making it harder for you to over consume calories. 

It limits your calorie intake, which is why you lose weight. But over time, you will end up simply eating more calories in the windows that you eat. With no metric to measure how much you’re eating and no real nutrition plan, you’ll likely end up overeating in the same way as before, just in a smaller time window.

At the start you may lose weight but it is not sustainable long term. If muscle gain is your goal, you won’t be able to sustain the calories needed to build muscle which gives you a toned and athletic look.

The upside of this diet is that by limiting your intake, your organs can rest. This can be healthy for your body overall and multiple studies have proven that intermittent fasting might slow cancer growth, improve blood pressure and regulate insulin levels.

So it’s not all bad. Which is why it gets a generous 4.

DARE rating: 4/10

5. Juice cleanses

Juice cleanses have a lot of negative evidence mounting up against them. 

Studies show that liquid diets are highly linked to eating disorders. Consuming an insufficient number of calories is also linked to some very negative consequences on blood sugar and nutrient deficiencies.

Examples of the symptoms people experience on juice cleanses include fainting, weakness, dehydration, headaches, and hunger. Nothing is worth risking your health for.

Plus, you won’t get anywhere. You’re not getting enough nutrients on these diets and liquids alone can’t sustain you long term. You need to eat food.

DARE rating: 0/10

You don’t need a New Year Diet Plan, You Need DARE

There are so many new year diet plans out there. If you’re trying to choose one it’s time to take a step back and think about what you really want. 

At DARE, you get a 360 approach to your fat loss journey, focusing on nutrition, strength training, movement and overall health..

It might be time to contact us now if you need help and are serious about change. We can put you on the right path so that 2025 is your fittest, healthiest year yet!