10 Crazy Ways to Lose Weight
Give me a quick fix to get rid of these pounds!
I’ve spent my entire adult life living in either NYC or Los Angeles. I’m pretty used to being around women doing weird things in the name of vanity and losing weight. So when I heard about the feeding tube diet, I was unfazed. The surprising part to me was the eruption of outrage and disgust that followed the story in the New York Times Style section.
This diet involves spending eight days on a portable feeding tube inserted through the nose. It supplies less than 1000 calories per day of liquid nutrition. It sounds extreme, but when you think about it, women have been doing crazier things to squeeze into a dress. At least this one is supervised by a doctor.
Some people are upset because they feel that this is a serious medical procedure that’s being trivialized. But aren’t tons of medical procedures eventually adapted for cosmetic use? Important medical devices and technologies have been used for frivolous reasons for ages. If there were a limited number of feeding tubes in the world and they were being taken away from people who really needed it, I would be outraged. Otherwise, I say live and let live. They’re not hurting anyone, except maybe themselves.
Some women will try any quick fix for losing weight, in an effort to avoid eating more vegetables and less cake. They’ve been using techniques that are just as outrageous as the feeding tube diet. Here are 10 of them that are pretty crazy, when you think about it. Can you guess which ones I’ve tried?:
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The Master Cleanse
On this diet, you consume nothing but spicy lemonade for 10 days (or more), but that's the easy part. Nobody likes to talk about the "salt water flush" aspect of this diet. When you consume nothing but liquid, there's no solids to... push things through. So, you're supposed to consume a quart of salt water every morning that you're on this diet. Then you wait around the house for an hour or so until you literally explode. Yes, out of your butt.
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Tapeworm
You think this photo of a garden worm is gross? Consider yourself lucky that I spared you the sight of a tapeworm. This disgusting-looking parasite is intentionally ingested so that it will consume all your food for you. Eat as much as you want! This little guy will eat it all for you. For the low, low cost of free rent in your bowels. Sounds like a bargain to me. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out...
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HCG
The HCG diet suggests you eat around 500 calories a day while getting daily shots of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), a hormone produced by the placenta during pregnancy. Finding a doctor to hook you up to a feeding tube might be easier than finding a doctor who buys into this widely debunked diet.
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Baby Food Diet
If Jennifer Aniston denies doing something, does that thing exist? Probably. Especially in Los Angeles. I know women in this town who would think that eating baby food all day long would give them way too many calories, actually.
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Colonics
A favorite of celebrities on the day before an awards show to flatten the belly. Does it take 5-15 pounds of poop out of you and instantly flatten your belly? Hells, yes. If you're comfortable with a stranger putting a tube in your rectum, then go for it!
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Diet Pills
Magic little bullets. Diet pills are way more dangerous than a feeding tube. But they continue to appeal to women, even after all those people died from taking fen-phen. In German folklore, the magic bullet ends up killing the poor idiot who bought it from the devil in the first place. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
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Stomach Stapling
A completely valid choice for people who are clinically obese. But still... Extreme. More hardcore than a temporary feeding tube.
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Liposuction
I'm not squeamish or judgmental about plastic surgery. But for some reason, the idea of someone jutting a tube into my thigh and sucking the fat out kind of freaks me out. After having a kid, I'm pretty comfortable with bodily fluids including blood, feces, urine, and mucus. But fat? I hope to never come face to face with my own fat.
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Vomiting
Back in my all-girls boarding school days, there was rarely a morning that I went to the bathroom and didn't find little bits of vomit floating in the toilet. I was so naive that for a while, I thought there must be a stomach flu going around. Then I went to college and found that intentionally puking into a bowl is kind of a rampant girl thing. Bulimia seems to be so prevalent, sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one who hasn't risked destroying the enamel on her teeth by regularly giving it to the bowl.
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Starvation
Countless skinny women all over Los Angeles are starving themselves at least a little bit, most of the time. How do you think they stay so skinny? I try to do it, too, but I only last about 3 hours at a time. Is there a woman out there who hasn't starved herself at least a little bit, especially before her wedding? Why do you think so many brides are crying at their wedding? They're so happy to be eating and drinking again.
photo credits: morgueFile
click for resources: The Master Cleanse, Tapeworms, HCG Diet, Baby Food Diet, Colonics, Diet Pills, Stomach Stapling, Liposuction, Vomiting, Starving
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I’m guessing you did colonics. Surely your husband had some awards show you needed to attend with him. Am I right? (I hope you didn’t have a worm in your butt).
I’m currently on the hCG diet, and so far it has been working for me. Tough? Yes. Impossible? No. I think the broader picture of the hCG diet is re-teaching yourself how to eat. Taking it down to the minimum to get you where you need to be, and slowly adding more items back in. As with any diet, if you’re committed to living a healthier lifestyle, by the time you get to the “adding back in” point you’ve learned much healthier eating habits, understand process foods more, and learn portion control by having weighed your foods every day.
Learning how to eat the right way is what led me down the path to hCG. Most people are so blinded by the weight loss goal, that they fail to see the long term changes they should be making.
Pumping yourself full of hCG is ridiculous and plain stupid. It’s not fully understood what the actual effects are of doing that, and you would honestly shot up something that isn’t fully understood? It’s entirely possible to learn how to eat better without being stupid about it. It just takes work instead of looking for the lazy way out. And that’s what all of these methods are: The lazy way out. I fully understand the parents who are upset with the feeding tube “diet”, because their children would *love* to be able to eat like their friends and family do, to be able to taste and enjoy food, and to not have people stare at them, and these ridiculous women are using the tubes because they’re trying to fit into a dress they’ll wear once. They’re too lazy to lose weight the right way, and too vain to get a dress in the correct size. I’m overweight and want to lose weight so I feel better, and I’m doing it the right way. My diet has had a major overhaul, and I’m starting to be more active. It’s hard as hell when I go out to a party or something, but it’s worth it in the end, and I’ve lost 13 pounds so far. So I don’t want to hear how hard it is because I know how hard it is, but if you stop being lazy and doing ridiculous things, you’ll succeed without looking like a complete idiot.
HCG Saved my life.. i have lost 100 lbs and kept it off since and am continuing to lose weight!!!!
HCG IS CRAZY…. CRAZY AWESOME!
@Alicia – Unless you have actually tried something, you shouldn’t pretend you know what you’re talking about. Its great you’ve chosen to reduce your diet and exercise to lose your weight, but who are you to condemn how other people chose to lose theirs? I’ve done 2 rounds of HCG and lost a total of 45lbs. Started June 2011 and have kept off every single lb since. Just because you don’t agree with the diet does not automatically make it “ridiculous” or “plain stupid”. It also CERTAINLY does not make me and thousands of other people “lazy” as i can assure you it takes everything BUT laziness to complete this diet. So once again, do some research and maybe talk to some actual people who have done the diet, before you go off spouting nonsense you know nothing of :)
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