Intro
1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.
2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.
Are there healthy and unhealthy ways to lose weight? Most experts say that the healthiest way to diet is to eat nutritious foods in moderation and to exercise. And those same experts agree that most fad diets are not healthy at all.
Fad diets come and go in popularity, and they all have different rules. On Atkins, you don’t eat carbs. On South Beach, you avoid fat. And then there are fad diets such as the acai berry craze, in which you drink smoothies made of a berry from the Brazilian rain forest. Could it ever be healthy to eat according to such strict rules?
Find out what Amanda and Lily think about fad diets in this English lesson.
Dialog
1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.
2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.
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Amanda: Well, here I go again.
Lily: What do you mean?
Amanda: I read my magazine, and I’m going to try this new fad diet again.
Lily: You know those things never work! You lose weight for maybe two weeks, and then it all comes back.
Amanda: Yes and no. Sometimes when you have a trip that you’re going to go on and you need to drop 10 pounds, or you’re going to be in a swimsuit, you kind of want to try one of those fad diets just to see if it works.
Lily: But there’s no nutritional basis to a lot of them.
Amanda: That’s not really a priority for me, though. The whole point of a fad diet is to lose some weight, right?
Lily: Get on the bandwagon?
Amanda: I tried Atkins. That was no carbs, and my diet consisted of cheese and beef. I switched to the South Beach diet.
Lily: Oh, what was that one again?
Amanda: I don’t really remember. I remember I ate a lot of peanut butter.
Lily: Did you do the acai berry one, too?
Amanda: Yes, is that the one that’s more of a cleanse? That seems to be the one that the celebrities go on, right? Before the Grammys and the Oscars, when they want to squeeze into an evening gown?
Lily: So are you a health nut, too? Or do you just do the diets?
Amanda: I want to say that yes, I’m a health nut, but the honest truth is I just want to try the diet. It seems like a quick fix, kind of maybe a cheating way of losing weight. I don’t really care what goes in, as long as something’s going out.
Grammar Point
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Discussion
Amanda is about to try a new fad diet. Lily’s suspicious, because she knows that those kinds of diets are just a quick fix. They allow someone to lose weight, but usually the weight comes back.
Amanda knows that there’s no real nutritional value to these kinds of diets, and that the weight doesn’t always stay off, but she doesn’t necessarily care. Sometimes all you want is to lose that weight for a particular vacation or event.
It seems as if Amanda has tried most of the fad diets out there. She’s usually ready to jump on the bandwagon of whatever diet is popular. Lily probably hopes that someday Amanda will try to have better nutrition overall, too.
Have you ever tried a fad diet? What was the experience like? What do you think is the healthiest way to lose weight?
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