The Mayo Clinic Diet is a fad diet purported to help people lose 50 to 55 pounds during a 10-week span. It has no connection to the respected Mayo Clinic, a top research hospital, in Minnesota.

The basic premise of the diet is that dieters should ban all complex carbohydrates, but can eat as much protein and fat as they want. One of the "rules" of the diet even states, "At any meal you may eat until you are full -- until you can't eat any more."

Experts agree that a diet based on unbalanced nutrition and limited food choices, like the one recommended in the Mayo Clinic Diet, can be unhealthy. Plus, the boredom associated with eating the same foods over and over can prompt a return to old eating habits once someone goes off the diet.

The quick weight loss associated with the plan is also unhealthy. A better option than the Mayo Clinic Diet is the Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid, a lifestyle plan that includes a variety of healthy foods and daily exercise -- and is actually associated with the Mayo Clinic. It offers personalized menus, shopping lists, meal plans, results charts and dining-out tips.

Learn more about diet hoaxes that can sabotage your weight loss plans and check out That's Fit's Fitness page for tips to get in shape.

Do you strive to maintain a consistent, healthy weight? Or are you on a near-constant cycle of losing weight, only to gain it back, and then dieting to lose it again?

If you're a yo-yo dieter, you might want to pay particular attention to nutrition when you're pregnant. According to a study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, yo-yo dieters tend to put on more weight during pregnancy.

Obviously, a trend is not a foregone conclusion. So, if you're expecting a little one and you've been a frequent dieter in the past -- don't worry. Just ask your OB/GYN for diet advice and consider consulting a nutritionist. For tips on a healthy pregnancy, check out AOL Health.

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Here at That's Fit, we're constantly telling you what we think about things, but sometimes it's nice to know what you think. So from time to time, we'll ask you a question. Don't be afraid to speak up -- we love feedback.

So you're cruising along with your diet and then it happens ... a piece of chocolate cake. Oh, the horror! All of a sudden your weight loss plans seem hopeless and why should you even bother trying?

Does this sound familiar? A lot of people are guilty of having an all-or-nothing mindset when it comes to weight loss. As if one little slip off of their plan can wipe away all of the healthful choices they've made up until then. So, I wonder ... what is your diet frame of mind?

I understand both sides of the to-weigh or not-to-weigh debate. On one hand, weighing yourself regularly keeps you honest and it can be motivating. On the other hand, for some, scales can become an obsession and, if you weigh yourself daily, you may get a bit down on yourself when the numbers don't move as fast as you wish they would.

I'm of the mindset that people just need to figure out what works best for them. I'm a weigher. Each morning, like it or not, I climb on the scale and see what's what. I've had to get used to the fact that sometimes -- even if I've done everything right -- I might go up a half pound or so. That's just the nature of weight loss; I accept that and don't let it ruin my day. Also, I'm a data-loving girl. For some reason, I just need to know that number on the scale when I'm trying to lose weight.

Glamour has an idea for weighing yourself without revealing the full truth. They suggest covering the first two numbers on the scale and just watching the final number. If you fall squarely in the not-to-weigh camp, this might be a handy trick for you.

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When it comes to weight loss, calories count. But don't get bogged down with record-keeping.

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After reading about ZoneDiet.com's survey that determined most people aren't very trusting of their diet buddies, I was curious to see what That's Fit readers thought. So I asked you in a poll about your own diet buddies. Here's what you revealed:

• 73.1% of you said that you would trust your diet partner to be honest. That's good news. The support of a trusted friend or family member can really help you stick to your weight loss plans.
  
• 77.8% of you admit that you would like to lose more weight than your diet partner. Well, I can't say I blame you. Weight loss isn't a competition (well, not unless you're on The Biggest Loser), but we can't be magnanimous all the time, can we?

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Any time there's a gimmick to a weight loss plan, I immediately get skeptical. Not fair, really. I should read about the plans with an open mind. Call me silly, but I'm jaded after all the crazy diet plans that have been created over the years.

Good Housekeeping has a plan they're calling The Amazing Soup Diet. Basically, they have a seven-day meal plan. You start your week by making a big pot of a basic vegetable soup recipe. Then they give you healthy meal suggestions for breakfast and lunch. For dinner, you add some ingredients to the basic soup to give it some variety. For snacks, you can have a small portion of the basic soup at anytime; you can also snack on raw vegetables.

The Good Housekeeping staffers who tried it are very positive about the plan. I, however, remain a jaded skeptic. I love soup as much as the next person, but that's a lot of soup to eat. More importantly, I think any plan that requires you to eat certain things is a bad idea. To successfully lose weight and maintain the loss, you need to learn healthful eating patterns and establish an exercise routine -- and those habits have to last a lifetime. However, unlike other crazy diet plans, there's nothing in The Amazing Soup Diet that's unhealthful or potentially harmful ... and the soup does sound tasty.

For diet tips that really work, click on the Shrink a Size banner.

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Recent research suggests that dieting during flu season could make you more likely to catch the flu. Researchers from Michigan State University put mice on a calorie-restricted diet; the mice found it harder to fight off the infection than other mice who were given higher amounts of calories.

So, yay! Hand over the chocolate cake, I'm going to eat some calories and save myself from the flu. Uh ... no.

The mice in the study were given 40 percent fewer calories than their non-restricted counterparts. That's a pretty drastic calorie reduction. Safe and effective weight loss involves cutting calories, certainly -- but the reduction shouldn't be as drastic as that in the study. You can use an online calculator to estimate your caloric needs. Eating healthfully, as balanced diets suggest you do, will help you with your weight loss efforts while keeping your body strong, healthy and able to fight off illness.

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Looking for the perfect diet? Well it doesn't exist. And not just in terms of one perfect diet for everybody, but experts are now saying there's no perfect diet for each individual either. Recent research shows that regardless of what kinds of diets people use, they generally lose the same amount of weight (about 10-15 pounds) and then gain it back over generally the same amount of time (3 to 5 years).

Does this make sense to you? I still believe that some diets are easier for some people to stick with based on their individual personalities, but maybe nobody is sticking with anything for more than 10 or 15 pounds?

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As if you don't already have enough stress in your life (trying to lose weight being one of them) your diet may be causing you even more. In a study of mice, those who were switched from high fat/high carb diets to lower fat/lower carb diets showed brain changes and behavior consistent with increased anxiety and increased stress. Also interesting was the fact that the mice were much more willing to go into an unpreferred environment (bright light) to get the "better" diet than they were previously.

So beware, if this is true for people too then even though switching to a healthier diet is still overall a good idea, understanding how you may feel on a subconscious level could really help in the battle to succeed and stick with it.

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Pretty much every successful dieter can say they've experienced it on some level: hitting that point when the weight loss suddenly stops. No good reason, no rational explanation, your body just decides that what was doing the trick isn't working anymore. Just because.

Unfortunately, that "plateau" is the death of many perfectly good dieting efforts. To help us all bust through and keep going strong, there's some advice on how to jumpstart your weight loss when you've hit a wall. Some of the tips listed are things like keeping a food diary and taking an honest look at just how much you're eating -- calories have a way of sneaking in through morning lattes and that candy jar by the fax machine at the office. Other ideas include strength training (either get started or ramp it up if you already are) and taking an inventory of your personal life to see if things like stress are throwing a wrench in the works.

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