What’s the craziest diet you’ve ever tried?

23rd March 2009

What’s the craziest diet you’ve ever tried?

posted in Diets, Food History |

From tapeworms to magic headbands that let you dream away the pounds, Americans have embarked on some crazy and desperate diets through the years. Glamour magazine — yes, the same magazine that has promoted some of the wacky diets it now ridicules — plumbs through seven decades of diet insanity. In brief:

Lucky Strikes Cigarettes

1930s-’40s diet trends: smoking and the Master Cleanse
Models and celebrities must have gotten the idea that smoking keeps you thin from somewhere, right? It turns out a 1920s-’30s ad campaign is to blame. Cigarette brand Lucky Strike used the line “Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet.” Women looking for a quicker fix opted for the lemonade diet, or Master Cleanse. Developed by Stanley Burroughs, the diet allowed only lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup.

1950s diet trend: prayer
Want to drop pounds? Pray for weight loss. The idea may sound nutty to some, but in the 1950s, the Christian dieting industry exploded. After losing 100 pounds, Reverend Charlie Shedd wrote the book “Pray Your Weight Away,” which was published in 1957. Think this trend has died? Think again. In 2002, Don Colbert, M.D., published What “Would Jesus Eat?” and “The What Would Jesus Eat Cookbook.”

1960s diet trend: support groups and cabbage soup
The ’60s were all about sharing the love, and the concept even applied to dieting. Dieters began forming support organizations. Early in the decade, a group of compulsive eaters formed Overeaters Anonymous. And in 1961, Jean Nidetch invited friends into her New York City home to talk about weight loss. Two years later, after losing 72 pounds, she launched Weight Watchers. But dieting wasn’t always so friendly. The Cabbage Soup Diet was published in a book during this time. It promised dieters they would lose 17 pounds, but users mentioned the gassy side effects — not exactly conducive to close encounters, huh?

1970s diet trend: diet pills
The era touted the miracle of diet pills… In essence, they promised you could stuff your face with pizza and bread without consequences. After reports of vomiting and abdominal pain, however, the FDA pulled the pills in 1983 to investigate the long-term side effects. Dexatrim was another pill of the era. The appetite suppressant contained the drug PPA (phenylpropanolamine), and in 2000, it too was pulled from the market. The pill was eventually reincarnated as Dexatrim Natural Ephedrine-Free…
[Diet pills are very unhealthy and some are even downright dangerous -- the FDA has listed warnings for diet pills and supplements here.]

1980s diet trend: Scarsdale Diet
The 1980s swung away from easy fixes and back to hardcore discipline with the Scarsdale Diet. It was a two-week high-protein, low-carb and super-low-calorie diet (1,000 calories or fewer per day!). Author Herman Tarnower, M.D., claimed that by going on and off the diet every two weeks, followers could lose up to 20 pounds per week without any long-term deprivation of any vitamins or minerals. But the food list was restrictive: no butter, no salad dressing (except lemon and vinegar) and no alcohol. Your snack choices were either raw carrots or celery — that’s it. If losing 20 pounds a week sounds too good to be true, it is. For most people, consuming fewer than 1,200 calories a day is considered a starvation diet.

1990s diet trend: low-carb Atkins
Throughout the ’80s, people became aware of red meat’s association with heart disease, so they thought carbohydrates were the answer to a longer life, says Gabriella Petrick, PhD, a food historian at New York University. People who had ballooned from all the carbs fell in love with Dr. Atkins. Although he’d been around before the ’90s, his popularity soared after the book “Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution” was released in 1992.

This is a simplified list of historical diet trends — I could share with you some even crazier schemes I’ve come across in my research. For nineteenth century diet trends, read here or check out Hillel Schwartz’s “Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies & Fat.”

As a kid, I remember my mom making her “diet soup,” which was a watery broth filled with green beans and cabbage, but I never really followed any kind of prescribed diet plan before I embarked on the Atkin’s diet (which developed into my eating disorder). Six months later, I was vegetarian. Go figure. I stopped “dieting” early on in my eating disorder because I assumed that this would be the way I would have to eat (or not eat) for life, but in retrospect, I had some decidedly bizarre food habits. Pickles with mustard, anyone? Sugar-free Kool-aid and giardiniera? How about you? What’s the craziest diet you’ve ever tried?

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1 On March 23rd, 2009, JeanC said:

Craziest diet I ever tried was the Cambridge Diet in the early 80s while I was in college. I had some 2nd cousins who sold the stuff and my Grandmother bought me the first can of it. You had one 110 calorie shake or soup for breakfast, lunch or dinner, for a whopping 330 calories a day. Once you reached your goal weight, you dropped one of the replacement drinks for a sensible meal of 400 calories or less. It was a very interesting experience to regain all my lost weight while consuming less then 700 calories a day

I did try Dexatrim for about a week, but when my heart started skipping beats and trying to stop on me every once in a while, I decided that was not a good thing.

posted on March 23rd, 2009 at 1:32 pm

2 On March 23rd, 2009, Diane said:

Diets are just horrible in general. I mean anything with the word “die” in it has to be bad.

I once tried the “count every calorie that you put in your mouth diet” which then became the “obsessive diet” which then became an eating disorder.

I’ll never go on a diet again or count calories. It’s just destructive.

3 On March 23rd, 2009, Monica said:

Oy, dieting. I do not miss those days.

A few years ago when I was 16 I ate 1,000 calories a day in tuna fish and macadamia nuts. This diet was in an Atkins book as a way to get over a plateau or if you wanted to lose weight quickly for a wedding or something. The idea was that if you eat nothing but fat, fat is all your body has to burn. I went from 155 to 135 in two weeks.

Then one day I was making pumpkin muffins for my family when I snapped – ate all two dozen pumpkin muffins and gained back everything I’d lost in just three days. The chunks of hair I’d lost took quite a bit longer than three days to regrow though.

posted on March 23rd, 2009 at 1:47 pm

4 On March 23rd, 2009, Stuff Queer People Need To Know said:

That add pictured is so ridiculous.

posted on March 23rd, 2009 at 3:01 pm

5 On March 23rd, 2009, FatNSassy said:

Never Satisfied is a great book. I used it in my own research way back when. So sad to think we have had decades and decades of this madness.

posted on March 23rd, 2009 at 4:07 pm

6 On March 23rd, 2009, spoonfork said:

The low fat diet craze stuck with me the longest–I was one of those people you see insisting that the frozen yogurt guy take a polygraph to prove that the non-fat vanilla was indeed non-fat and only 6 calories an ounce.

In college, I lived on tuna and rice, non-fat (and notarized) frozen yogurt, raw veggies (cooked ones could have butter in them), air-popped popcorn (sprayed with Pam), and diet coke until my college roommate teamed up with my boyfriend and forced me to eat a small turkey sub with cheese after I’d eaten nothing but five ounces of chocolate fro-yo a day for a week. I didn’t think I’d ever forgive them.

“Stop the Insanity!!!” should have been “Stop the irony!”

posted on March 23rd, 2009 at 5:43 pm

7 On March 23rd, 2009, Mary Sue said:

Hypnosis tape I listened to on my Walkman when I was sleeping. I’d found it in a collection of tapes of my mother’s and snuck it out of her room as a teenager.

Damn thing kept me awake. And about the hundredth time I heard, “you will stop eating chocolate cake,” I turned it off, since I wanted chocolate cake so. bad. and it wasn’t allowed in my house due to my dad’s deathly allergy to chocolate.

(I love my dad, I really do, but you know what one of the most awesome things about living far from home is? I GET CHOCOLATE CAKE ON MY BIRTHDAY!)

posted on March 23rd, 2009 at 6:14 pm

8 On March 23rd, 2009, edhie said:

Ha. Egg whites. Sounds great: No fat, 15 calories each, and I didn’t even spray the pan with non-stick spray, so some of it would stick to the pan and I wouldn’t have to eat even that much. And lettuce leaves.

Once I ate a slice of bread at a Sunday breakfast with my family– and didn’t eat anything /but/ egg whites for a week after that. Maximum of 100 cal a day, that week, I think it must have been.

I went from ~220-ish pounds to 97 pounds in less than a year (May 2005 – August was the bulimic stage, August – March 2006 was ‘Ana’s turn). Thinking back, that probably wasn’t too great for my body, ya think?

9 On March 23rd, 2009, Bree said:

I almost went on the Fruit Flush Diet. Here is the WebMD description of it:

The Fruit Flush Diet requires only two steps. On the first day, you drink protein shakes. This is followed by two days of eating fresh fruit every two hours, plus a dinner meal of raw vegetables and a small amount of lean protein or a protein shake.

The diet provides about 900-1,000 calories each day, with about 100-125 grams of protein on day one and about 50 grams of protein on the other two days, depending on the type of protein powder you use.

Robb’s 3 Day Fruit Flush diet is different from the diet he calls the Fruit Diet, a 14-day program with slightly more calories and an “accelerated fruit flush plan” consisting of unlimited fresh fruit during the day, plus an evening meal of protein, vegetables, salad, and healthy fats. But in general, whenever fruit is the foundation of a diet plan, it could be called a fruit diet. Some people follow an all-fruit diet for a day a week or three days a month.

The Fruit Flush Diet: What You Can Eat
Beyond fresh fruit, raw vegetables, protein drinks, and lean sources of protein, there is very little you can eat on the Fruit Flush Diet. Dairy, caffeine, coffee, tea, alcohol, diet and regular sodas, starches, cooked vegetables, juices, most fats, and all sweets are prohibited.

I read some reviews from women who had tried it. Most had to stop because it gave them severe migraines, and other symptoms because your body was not getting the calories and nutrients it needed because almost all foods and other drinks were not allowed. After reading the side effects, I simply added more fruits on top of what I was already eating and began to drink more water. No diet is worth dealing with chronic pain, especially if you don’t suffer from it.

posted on March 23rd, 2009 at 6:25 pm

10 On March 23rd, 2009, Arwen said:

Before and after eating disorder, I mainly did straight diets – WW, calorie counting, low fat. As those got less and less effective, I moved on to low carb – Atkins, then … um, The Carb Addict’s Diet.

My last diet – the one that finally ended all diets and got me to FA – was the Shangri-La diet, aka: the oil drinking diet. Interestingly, it did radically constrain my calories. Only it also made me gagging ill, and I didn’t lose weight.

posted on March 23rd, 2009 at 7:12 pm

11 On March 23rd, 2009, O.C. said:

Berry Trim, or was it Berri-trim? It was a couple of berry flavored alkaseltzer-like tablets that would supposedly fill you up with effervescence and pectin! What a bunch of hooey.

posted on March 23rd, 2009 at 8:54 pm

12 On March 23rd, 2009, O.C. said:

Oh, and fiber pills. Through at least a year of high school, instead of eating lunch I would swallow five or six tablets of wood shavings and a glass of water. The fiber was supposed to swell up in your stomach and make you feel full. Right.

posted on March 23rd, 2009 at 8:55 pm

13 On March 23rd, 2009, living400lbs said:

I the late 70s I did a version of the Atkins diet. After gaining that weigh back I did low-fat. In high school (early 80s) I did The I Love NY Diet – lost 50lbs that time, then gained 70…

posted on March 23rd, 2009 at 11:03 pm

14 On March 23rd, 2009, Sal said:

One of my diets (not my first) was the Deborah Walley Gidget diet: “Be bikini thin by the Fourth of July.” I couldn’t follow the diet to the letter, but I did survive on green beans and Speical K cereal for several weeks.

Then who could forget the Dr. Stillman no carb diet of the late 1960’s. In fact that was my standby for a few years. Eat about 400 calories a day, and avoid all carbohydrates.

Yes, eat no food, and I, at least, could lose weight. (And gain it back fairly rapidly.)

I never fell for diet pill schemes. Why should I, when starvation worked so well–at least in the short term.

posted on March 23rd, 2009 at 11:27 pm

15 On March 24th, 2009, Elle said:

Grapefruit diet. *shudders* To this very day, I simply cannot stand to even look at grapefruits. I ate three a day, with sweet ‘n’ low on top of them, and that was the only thing I’d eat. I ended up in the hospital and couldn’t eat much of anything solid for months, since I had damaged my stomach so badly.

posted on March 24th, 2009 at 12:04 am

16 On March 24th, 2009, Fat Angie said:

Ever see those ads for Relacore? They reduce stress hormones, which prevent accumulation of belly fat? They made me lose weight, all right. And my hair.

I tried hoodia for a while too, and milk thistle (one of the side effects is “anorexia”), but I had jitters with those.

posted on March 24th, 2009 at 12:36 am

17 On March 24th, 2009, Megan said:

Worst Diet? Good old calorie reduction that turned into extremely disordered behavior. Down to 600 or so calories a day and asking myself whether I really needed that one ounce of skim milk diluted in water, or whether I could make my “lunch” of four hard candies last two days. A couple months of this to try to get past a plateau in my weight before I finally stopped and *thought* about what I was doing, scared the bejeezus out of myself, and gave up dieting for good.

Before that? Weight Watchers, vegetarianism (occasionally WITH the weight watchers), Atkins, South Beach, Cabbage Soup, Eat Right 4 Your Type, pills, Slimfast. Probably a few others I can’t remember. Most of those before the age of 18.

posted on March 24th, 2009 at 12:58 am

18 On March 24th, 2009, Entangled said:

The only one I tried, which despite the fact that I usually gave up by dinnertime STILL gave me an eating disorder, was counting calories. I can barely even look at the word calorie without getting the willies now. Part of the problem was the good/bad mentality of it all and part of it was the fact that the minimum amount of energy I need to function is far, far above even the most generous diets’ allowances. Which isn’t so bad a quality unless you’re feeling guilty and self-loathing about each and every bite of food.

I was also a vegan for a few years, which I didn’t do for weight loss. The only thing that was weird about it was that I didn’t really have a reason.

I think the most horrifying thing about that list, though, is that all of those things are still around. You would think people would figure this out by now, but no.

posted on March 24th, 2009 at 1:18 am

19 On March 24th, 2009, sillymharia said:

Espresso (black), tea, lentils and shaved carrots with grapes. With a side of pills. Or patches. It was the worst because I had night classes and we’d make pastries and desserts until eleven in the evening (I’m a pastry chef now)and we’d still have to taste our own work. I ridiculously sleepy all the time and finally woke up, as it were, when I was almost too tired to make it to the closet FROM my bed after a couple of months. My flat mate dragged me out and drove me to the nearest taco bell. I’m still a bit horrified at what I was doing, but at least I can say I’m hale and healthy.

posted on March 24th, 2009 at 2:08 am

20 On March 24th, 2009, CassandraSays said:

Nothing but stock cubes dissolved in water to make what I called “soup”. Occasionally when I got dizzy I added 1 Ryvitta or a banana.

Somehow nobody around me saw this as a possible sign I might be developing an eating disorder.

posted on March 24th, 2009 at 3:11 am

21 On March 24th, 2009, Jen said:

In the UK the pharmacy chain Boots had this great “diet” in the 90s, when I was about 8 or 9 (yes really! Thanks MUM!). The diet consisted of these huge (to me) chocolate bars, about 200g, that were “fortified” with vitamins etc that you ate as meal replacements! SWEET! Chocolate for every meal! Nice one!

Can’t remember if I lost any weight on it, but I didn’t care, I was 9 for chrissakes and getting to eat chocolate at every meal!

posted on March 24th, 2009 at 4:47 am

22 On March 24th, 2009, Rachel said:

Ugh, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry after reading some of these!

posted on March 24th, 2009 at 8:48 am

23 On March 24th, 2009, newlyveg said:

I did an Atkins-like diet. High protein, low carb (severly low carb) for a bodybuilding competitions. That was in 2003. My skin was flaky. I hated myself and everyone around me. It was what I imagine suffering “roid rage” is like, except without the steroids. Furthermore, the lack of carbohydrates made me very dumb. I had more “is tuna chicken or fish?” moments than I care to admit. I’m normally a smart person. It wasn’t until then that I truly understood what people meant by the term “meat head” because I truly felt like one. I still shudder when I hear someone talk about carb control.

After that experience, I foolishly tried to do The Zone. But, I didn’t make it past the first half of the book. I had to close it when I actually read that this diet claims that carrots and corn are bad for you. (See, I much more competent when I’m not starving)

posted on March 24th, 2009 at 1:41 pm

24 On March 24th, 2009, buttercup said:

1) Stillman
2) grapefruit diet
3) Amphetamines, both prescribed and street.

they all worked in the short term. The uppers almost killed me, but I was thin.

posted on March 24th, 2009 at 1:51 pm

25 On March 24th, 2009, returnofconky said:

Wow, had to comment on this one. My great grandmother had a legendary dieting story that was always told in my presence, (as if maybe it would finally ‘inspire’ me). It involved eating nothing but orange creamcicles and rolling around on the floor. They always said she lost a huge amount of weight. When my grandmother died and I inherited all of the old pictures of Great-grandma, I was shocked to see that she wasn’t obese like they had described, just maybe a size 14. Of course this is the same side of the family that would buy all clothing 2 sizes too small for me as gifts, even shoes!

I’ve tried low-fat and calorie restriction, which led to gall stones and emergency surgery (but a loss of 50lbs, yay?). I’ve tried the Healthy Weigh, which was a load of crap, and way too expensive for them to keep trying to tell me to eat lean pork (I was strict vegetarian and that was noted on my chart). I’m still dealing with health issues from those diets, and my husband has begged me to never go on one again. I’m trying to listen to him, and not fall in with the mass of women doing the insurance-covered Weight Watchers at my work. Not enjoying the peer pressure there.

posted on March 24th, 2009 at 2:45 pm

26 On March 24th, 2009, CassandraSays said:

@ Newleyveg – Oh yeah, the carrots are bad thing. That’s how I first heard about Atkins, from a coworker who went “omg don’t you know those are bad for you?” when I was munching on peeled baby carrots at my desk. While she was having cut up hot dogs and mozzarella sticks for lunch. Um, what?

posted on March 24th, 2009 at 7:19 pm

27 On March 24th, 2009, Melissa said:

I did this “Sacred Heart” diet or also I’ve heard people call it the “soup diet”. I think the purpose of this diet was for people who were about to undergo heart surgery to lose some water weight quick.
Where you make a big giant pot of this soup which is tomato based with all types of veggies in it. You can eat that everyday and as much of it as you want.
I think for the first couple of days you’re just allowed the soup, then on day 3 or something like that you can have a “small” baked potatoe,, Then on other days you’re allowed some fruit and then on a couple of days you’re allowed some beef.

It was horrible.
Everytime I think about eating that soup my gag reflex starts acting up. I think after doing that for a week or 10 days even thinking about eating that soup is enough to put my body into shock!

posted on March 24th, 2009 at 10:49 pm

28 On March 25th, 2009, sarah-j said:

Wow, these comments are a powerful testament to how futile dieting really is.

I never really followed a diet that wasn’t devised by me. Great idea of course, to go on a diet prescribed by your teenage self. One which gives absolutely no consideration to nutrition, only to thinness. Although, the effect of many of the ‘official’ diets described above is exactly the same.

I find it interesting that people are mentioning their aversion to foods from their dieting past. Apples were a staple food for me both before and during my dieting days and now I just really don’t wanna eat them anymore!

posted on March 25th, 2009 at 10:32 am

29 On March 26th, 2009, Anonymous, please said:

When I was still very much in the grips of my eating disorder, ephedra was still legal. You could buy it in gas stations. I went through a bottle of 60 pills every two days. I was shaky, couldn’t sleep, and was chain-smoking like a fiend, but one thing I was NOT was hungry.
A few years later, still struggling, I went through a phase where I ate as little as possible, instead only drinking wine. A LOT of wine. All the time. I actually developed alcoholism, and when I finally quit drinking, I ended up in the ICU for a week with the DTs. I almost died. (I’ve been sober for almost eight months now.)

The really funny/horrible/sad thing is that I’m naturally quite a slim person. My all-time “high weight” was about 135, on a muscular 5′3″ frame. My ED got so bad that I was totally willing to sacrifice my health (and very nearly my life) in order to get rid of a few “extra” pounds that weren’t even extra in the first place!

posted on March 26th, 2009 at 2:40 pm

30 On March 26th, 2009, Bumblebee said:

My sister has had a serious eating disorder for the past decade–she has some serious diet “moves.” She ate tuna fishish–not with mayo, but w mustard (no relish, salt, or pepper) for two years sold–just tuna and mustard–at every meal. It doesn’t sound so bad, but seeing her prepare that and eat it day in and day out was absolutely vile. Mustard tunafish salad is to be eaten off a spoon ONLY.

posted on March 26th, 2009 at 9:42 pm

31 On July 2nd, 2009, Dieting, repackaged » The-F-Word.org said:

[...] of fresh lemon or lime juice, maple syrup, water and Cayenne pepper — has been around since 1941. Stanley Burroughs, it’s creator, originally called it the “Lemonade Diet,” but [...]

posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 1:39 pm