6 Terrible Diet Strategies to Skip

I came across this article on the web. No way that I would eat cottonballs or tapeworms.

Kim

6 Terrible Diet Strategies to Skip

These crazy weight loss methods are uncomfortable, ineffective, and could put your health at risk

Diet Tactics You Should Never Try

It's a wonder what Americans will do to drop pounds. Eating jars of baby food, noshing on nothing but cabbage soup, or drinking concoctions of lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper are preferable, it would seem, to a simple, sensible diet.

But at least these fads, no matter how unappetizing, are pretty harmless—you're likely to get sick of such strategies before they do any harm. But not every slimming scheme is so benign: We've found six that are painful, dangerous, and in most cases, just won't work.

Our experts examined these over-the-top diets to explain why they won't work, how they're dangerous, and how, in some cases, simple alternatives can create the desired results.

Dexatrim, Hydroxycut, and Other Diet Pills

For all those who have dreamed of a magic pill that will melt fat and sculpt your body ... these ain't it.

"Dexatrim is a decongestant," says Sandra Carpenter, RD, Senior Program Manager for Weight Management and Nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "It uses the same things you would if you had allergies—it restricts the blood vessels. This causes your heart rate to go up a little bit."

The result, ideally, is that your amped heart rate will burn extra calories throughout the day. But the pill can be dangerous for those at risk for heart disease and others, like caffeine-fueled Hydroxycut, can make you jittery or nauseous. And as soon as you stop taking them, the effects will wear off.

"If you don't change the behaviors, as soon as you stop taking the pills, you'll go back to where you started," says Carpenter. To burn off a few extra calories—and keep burning them off—starting an exercise program is safer, and its effects more long-lasting.

Diuretics

You've probably heard that contestants on The Biggest Loser load up on asparagus and skimp on water in the days and hours leading up to their weigh-ins, hoping to cheat an extra 0.2 pounds off the scale and avoid elimination. What they're doing, especially with the asparagus, is a version of the practice of using diuretics to lose weight.

But here's the problem: Unless you're weighing in for a chance at $250,000 or making sure you're under a certain threshold for your next professional fight, the effects of this method are fleeting, and can come with some rough side effects.

"Your body needs fluid to process calories and nutrients," says Carpenter. Diuretics dehydrate the body, which attacks a new source of fluid. "When you're dehydrated, your body breaks down muscle, because muscle is 70 percen****er."

Breaking down muscle, Carpenter says, will slow your metabolism over time—meaning that you'll burn fewer calories and gain weight when you're not using the diuretic substance.

The Tapeworm Diet

Tapeworms are parasites: They live in digestive tracts and feed off the food their hosts consume. The idea behind the tapeworm diet, rumored to have started in the 1930s, is that you intentionally eat a tapeworm's eggs and ... basically give yourself a disease.

If the idea of a creature inside you doesn't instantly conjure fears borne from Alien, this might dissuade you: "The vitamins and minerals your body needs to absorb are instead consumed by the tapeworm," says Valerie Berkowitz, RD, director of nutrition at the Center for Balanced Health. "You're malnourished! You're feeding the worm the very things your body needs in order to go."

The Cotton Ball Diet

Proponents of this quick fix pop a few cotton balls—that is, they eat them—a little while before each meal. The puffs, they surmise, fill their stomachs so there's less room for food.

"Your body's pretty smart, and it's looking not just for calories, but for nutrients," says Carpenter. If you lack nutrients your body needs, it won't matter how many cotton balls you choke down. "Your body will tell you that it needs food until you give it what it needs."

The idea of eating something prior to a meal to feel full isn't without merit, though, says Sue Shapses, PhD, RD, director of the New Jersey Obesity Group and professor of nutritional sciences at Rutgers University. Even a warm drink before your meal can help you eat less.

"When you have a liquid food, you can get a sensation of fullness," she says. "Some researchers have found that if you have a broth before your meal, you'll consume fewer calories."

The Sleeping Beauty Diet

It's rumored that Elvis Presley tried this simple strategy: Take a handful of sedatives. You'll "sleep off" some weight because, simply, you can't eat while sleeping.

"You don't wake up until 2 in the afternoon and, great, you missed two meals," says Valerie Berkowitz, RD, director of nutrition at the Center for Balanced Health. Setting aside that this strategy pumps your system full of drugs, Berkowitz says, "for most people, it's not exactly productive—don't you need to go to work?"

Tongue Patch Surgery

It's pretty barbaric: If you pay $2,000, a doctor will surgically attach a "patch" to your tongue that makes it painful to chew and swallow food, forcing you to stick with his gut-melting liquid diet.

"This is presented as an alternative to gastric bypass surgery," says Carpenter. "But even with gastric bypass, the surgery isn't the magic. It's the behavior changes that the doctors help patients develop that keeps the weight off."

Translation: After a month of painfully drinking your calories, you'll have learned nothing. And when the patch comes off, you might binge back the weight using the same habits that put it on in the first place—maybe more so, because you'll have missed solid food.

"Even when we prescribe a low-carb diet, patients will complain that there's not enough crunch—people miss it," says Berkowitz. So when you get the post-patch chance to munch again, you may go overboard.

 

I can't believe they forgot to mention my other favorites such as:

The amputation diet: Removing arms not only makes it harder to eat but you can lose 8lbs per limb instantly.

The e-coli diet: Remember, you're just one good stomach flu away from your ideal weight.

The no intestines diet: Nothing takes away the thrill of eating more than having to get all your nutrients through IV cause your intestines have been completely removed.

Good ones!!  LOL

 Let's not forget the AIDS, dysentery and cholera diets!

I have one word for it all...eew.