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.

For everyone who's been popping vitamins to keep them healthy and strong, Reader's Digest recently published 'The Vitamin Hoax - What Not to Take' in their November 2007 issue.

To my friends (myself included), who have been popping pills like Vitamin A and E everyday by only following a beauty columnist's advice on how to make your skin glow (yes, I'm trying to get rid of wrinkles), the Reader's Digest article claims that studies show:

• Taking antioxidant vitamins increases a person's risk of dying by 16%.
• High doses of Vitamin E taken over 10 years slightly elevated cancer risk in smokers.
• Too much Vitamin A increases the risk of liver and lung cancer.

There's so much more to quote in the recent issue, and that doesn't mean I agree or disagree with the article. I just want to share it with you. Everyone should take the time to read it and decide for themselves about what it says because what we learn about vitamins and supplements seems to change daily.

If you are wondering, yes, I take vitamins (as do my children), and will continue to do so -- but that said -- people should stop depending on supplements and instead get their vitamins from a balanced diet consisting of real food (rather than processed). The problem: Only 3 percent of us actually eat that well, so it's much easier said than done ... and supplements can be a good option if you're not getting what you need from your diet.

Here is the list of 10 Vitamins that Reader's Digest suggests that we do not need to take and their reasons why:

Source