After analyzing the good two dozen (and network, and scientific, and very glamorous) literary sources devoted to diets, the author modestly tried to highlight some common rational link in these very diets. And here are the results. 

Firstly, all diets can be divided into several large groups, each of which is led by a variety of principles. So, in order.

1. Diets for various professions and professional groups (various sports and labor)

Pure calorie and the predominance of certain food substances (not even products!) Are usually at the forefront. For example, athletes – protein, workers of hot shops – plentiful salt drink, tourists – canned food and concentrates, including chocolate and dried fruits.   

For example, during my service, the rations were 4600 kilocalories per day (!!!), chocolate and milk were required for breakfast , and in general breakfast amounted to about 50% of the diet … 

2. Diets for the treatment of various diseases (tuberculosis, diabetes and so on)

The main thing here is not even the number of calories (although it is important for tuberculosis and burn disease ), but the composition (set) of products and the way they are prepared.  

For example, it’s clear that diabetes is limited to sweets of all kinds and carbohydrates. With exacerbation of peptic ulcer, fried, spicy, salty, smoked, and marinades are excluded. Recommended boiled (including steamed), mashed, stewed. And how many dishes from banal chicken, ocean fish or rice can be cooked like this? And how many different delicious cereals? But lamb in any form – fire! 

3. Diets for weight loss

The conversation is special. Distinctive properties, probably not less than seven. In order:

• Frequent dominance of a product or group: vegetables and fruits, dairy, boiled rice and so on.
• Usually small portions of food.
• Choosing the most useful side dish (boiled vegetables in water instead of french fries, salad with refined oil, and not 20% sour cream or mayonnaise).
• A little fried (everything is fried in fat!).
• A little fat in general (where does the fat come from ???).
• A little sugar and sweet (as the biochemical forerunner of the same fats). 
• The restrictions in flour are either fantastic (a piece of bran a day or dry cookies in the morning), or none at all. Generally speaking, a lot of energy is required to convert carbohydrates into fat! And the author is more a supporter of the second option. 
• A combination with a certain amount of physical activity (there is something more you want!).

There are more exotic recommendations, but about them – not in this article. And the author himself treats overweight with hypnosis, but not by disconnecting these two opposites, but by connecting them in the integral. It’s just for the unconscious to “lose weight” – to become bad, and to grow stout – to “lose weight ”, and that’s it …   

4. Diet days

Usually one or two days of massive consumption of any one product in order to improve or reduce weight (apples, cottage cheese, kefir). Usually they are not long. But they require a certain regularity (once a month, a week, and so on). Reminiscent of a truncated, short-term secularized post (in civilian form).

And the main thing in all the notorious diets is the systematic implementation, and this is probably their main “trick”. What do you think about this, dear reader?