Sometimes, Celebrity Diets Are Too Good to Be True

March 26, 2010— -- Spring has sprung and summer is almost here, which means that the teeny-weeny bikini sitting in the back of your closet once again is ready to make an appearance.

The question is, are you ready for its appearance?

For those fearing stepping out in swimwear, the allure of a quick fat-loss program or a celebrity diet can be too much to pass up. But the truth is that not all of them deliver the results they claim to.

Dr. Marc Lawrence, the self-proclaimed celebrity diet doctor, studied at Cornell Medical School and trained in emergency medicine at Stanford and general surgery at Harvard. On his Web site, celebritydietdoctor.com, he breaks down celebrity fad diets into fact and fiction.

"This is my way of reaching out to people," Lawrence told ABCNews.com. "A lot of people are interested in celebrities and their nutrition, so I take that and I add real nutrition advice to the celebrity plans."

Lawrence's main advice when it comes to dieting is to go fresh and natural.

"The way to get healthy and lose weight is to eat unprocessed foods," Lawrence said. "For example, take four ounces of corn straight from the cob. That is about 90 calories. Now mash them down into tortillas. Those are about 290 calories. Then dry those out and add sugar to make corn flakes, which are around 400 calories. Finally, press those out and add fats to get 600 calories worth of flavored corn chips. We have gone from 90 calories for four ounces of corn to 600 calories from 4 ounces of flavored corn chips.

"Everybody wants to be a part of the new diet craze," Lawrence added. "Everybody wants the secret, but the real secret is staring them in the face from the produce aisle."

Lawrence offered his opinions on today's newest, hippest celebrity diets:

Amanda Seyfried -- The Raw Food Diet

In her new movie "Chloe," Amanda Seyfried is looking better than ever. She openly credits the raw food diet for her figure.

The diet consists of eating only unprocessed and uncooked foods. The proponents of this diet believe that when food is cooked, enzymes that aid in digestion are destroyed and the positive nutritional effects of the food can be lessened. The diet includes lots of fruits, veggies and nuts, but it also can include sushi or homemade cheeses and yogurts. If you can hand-make it from raw parts, you can eat it.

Seyfried admitted in the April issue of Esquire magazine that the diet is working to keep her slim. Whether or not she enjoys the diet is another story.

"It's intense. And sort of awful," Seyfriend told Esquire. "Yesterday for lunch? Spinach. Just spinach, spinach and some seeds."

But Seyfried suffers for her art.

"I have to stay in shape because I am an actress," Seyfried told Glamour magazine last month. "It's twisted, but I wouldn't get the roles otherwise."

In Lawrence's opinion, the raw foods diet is the best way to lose weight.

"Raw food is a great diet," Lawrence said. "If you are looking to lose weight, it is good to eat foods that are high in water content like vegetables. The raw food diet purports eating foods that are high in water, low in calories and high in nutrition. The reason we are fat is because we are eating processed foods, so a diet that says only eat unprocessed, natural foods is great."

Jennifer Aniston -- The Zone Diet

Remember when Aniston appeared on the cover of GQ wearing nothing but a necktie -- at 40?

Even "over the hill," Aniston is still looking fabulous. Recently, Gerard Butler, her co-star in "The Bounty Hunter," said that Aniston "has the best legs in Hollywood."

Aniston credits a mixture of the Zone Diet and regular exercise in the form of cardio and yoga for her figure.

In the GQ article, she said that by sticking to the Zone Diet, with occasional splurges, she keeps her body photo-spread ready.

The Zone Diet, created by Dr. Barry Sears, tells followers to eat a 40:30:30 ratio of carbs, proteins and fats.

Lawrence believes the zone diet is too high in proteins.

"You don't need more than 10 percent of your diet to be proteins," Lawrence said. "Bringing it up to 30 percent is unnecessary. There is also a big difference in plant-based proteins and animal-based proteins. The plant-based proteins like nuts and beans are superior to the animal-based proteins. It has been proven multiple times that cultures with high animal-based protein diets have an increased risk of heart disease."

Kelly Osborne -- The Bar Method

The chubby girl from reality TV's "The Osbournes" is no more.

Kelly Osbourne, 25, was featured on the cover of Us Weekly last month for dropping more than 40 pounds. The starlet, whose parents are Ozzy and Sharon, has been dropping weight since appearing on last season's "Dancing with the Stars." Osbourne said she achieved her new figure by controlling her diet and using a dance-based exercise program called the bar method.

According to the Barmethod.com the routine is a mixture of ballet and Pilates. The workout "creates a uniquely lean, firm, sculpted body" by using "the body-elongating practice of dance conditioning."

Lawrence said that the most important thing is to just get up and move.

"As far as exercise is concerned," Lawrence said, "just walk. Find a way to fit walking into your lifestyle. Remember that you are never going to lose a lot of weight through exercise. You will lose the weight by changing your diet, but exercise is going to keep it off."

Osbourne told Us Weekly that she used to weigh almost 160 pounds and despite being in and out of drug rehab three times, the weight was all that was talked about.

"I took more hell for being fat than I did for being an absolute raging drug addict," Osbourne told Us Weekly. "I will never understand that."

Osbourne also keeps a very positive attitude when it comes to weight loss. She doesn't call her weight-loss plan a diet. Instead, she told Us Weekly, it is "a commitment to a life change."

Kate Winslet -- The Facial Analysis Diet

Just five years before her Oscar win in 2008, Winslet gave birth to a healthy baby boy, but kept the more-than-50 pounds she gained while pregnant.

That is, until she met nutritionist Elizabeth Gibaud, who had a revolutionary way for losing weight -- to look at your face.

"I look for markings, facial color and skin texture," Gibaud told the U.K.'s Daily Mail. "This tells me which minerals are lacking."

For example, according to Gibaud, open pores means there is too much acid in your system, and having stress lines means you are lacking mineral salt.

In her book, "The Facial Anayalsis Diet," Gibraud outlines the six face categories that most people fall into and then lists the foods to eat and the foods to avoid. The book promises that if you modify your diet based on your specific face category, you will see results.

"My prognosis is 95 percent successful," Gibaud told the Daily Mail. "Once I have designed a package suited to your needs, all you have to do is stick to it, and like Kate you'll soon see immediate results."

But the plan is more shady from a nutritionist's perspective.

"A lot of this is marketing," said Lawrence. "All you have to do to lose weight is to get more fruits and vegetables into your diet and keep processed foods to a minimum."

Reese Witherspoon -- The Baby Food Diet

Hollywood is always trying to look younger, but now it seems some of them are even eating younger -- a lot younger.

The Baby Food Diet consists of substituting one or two meals a day with a jar of baby food. The other one to two meals a day can be regular "adult meals."

Lawrence thinks that this is one of the better weight loss ideas out there because baby food is just mashed fruits and vegetables.

"It is the least processed of the processed foods," he said.

"I love looking at baby food containers," Lawrence said. "If the flavor is apple berry, you turn the bottle to the other side and the ingredients are just apple, raspberries and blueberries."

"If you want to eat tons of baby food," Lawrence added, "Go for it. It is much healthier than what most people are eating, and the best part is there is not a need for extreme portion control. If you want to eat tons of baby food you are most likely not going to gain weight."

He said that because infant digestive systems are immature, the baby food is fairly free of additives and fillers.

And the best part, lunch can cost as little as 60 cents.

Kim Cattrall -- The Facelift Diet

Can you erase facial lines and depuff your eyes by eating just fish?

Dr. Nicolas Perricone, creator of the the Perricone Weight Loss Diet, thinks so. And so do Kim Catrall and Julia Roberts, who are two of the many celebrities that have been on the Perricone diet.

Perricone believes a diet high in proteins, which according to him have natural anti-inflammatory properties, can decrease the skin's wrinkling and other signs of aging.

His favorite source of protein is organic, wild salmon. In fact, for the first three days of his 28-day plan, the dieter is supposed to eat a four- to six-ounce filet of salmon at every meal. So those who don't like fish need not apply.

The diet also calls for followers to cut out foods that cause water-retention such as refined sugars and fats.

Lawrence said that on a theoretical level Omega 3 does help with skin.

"Having a healthy intake of Omega 3 does lead to less wrinkling," he said. "What you eat can, of course, affect your skin. For example, carotene-rich foods help prevent sunburn naturally. That said, no study has linked this diet to a significant amount of weight loss."

Gwyneth Paltrow -- The GOOP Diet

In 2008, Paltrow started her own personal lifestyle Web site called GOOP. The Web site includes diet recommendations, exercise ideas and ways to get yourself moving.

GOOP's tag line is "nourish the inner aspect," and it allows readers to sign up for weekly newsletter that focus on one of the subjects: make, go, get, do, be or see.

After the holidays, Paltrow sent out a GOOP newsletter telling readers how she was going to "lose a few pounds of holiday excess."

"You can detox easily and effectively while you continue to eat," Paltrow wrote, "as long as you are cutting out the foods and other substances that interfere with the detoxification process."

The newsletter then went on to describe a seven-day detox diet that has almost every day starting with a smoothie and ending with a dinner of soup.

"I will be suffering along with you to kick-start my year a bit lighter," Paltrow wrote. "Good luck to us all!"

Lawrence said that he was not a huge fan of multiple liquid meals.

"If possible, I like to see food with fiber being eaten, instead of liquid," Lawrence said. "But honestly, in the end, a healthy diet is not about detoxing, it is about eating unprocessed foods. Eat unprocessed food and you will be OK."