Have You Ever Done A Stupid/Fad Diet? What Happened?
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I did the 24680 diet. I think I lasted 4 rounds on it before my boss caught onto what I was doing and told me that either I start eating properly or she would fire me (total bluff btw she told me ages later)
I lost about 10kgs on that.
For those of you who don't know what it is, 200 calories one day, 400 the next, 600, 800 (so you don't go into starvation mode) then a complete fast. Then back to 200 calories etc.
You keep this up apparently forever lol. I highly would not recommend it. Not unless you like fainting, stomach cramps, that feeling like your stomach is going to eat your lungs unless you feed it etc
I gained it all back and then some
Oh and I did the nothing but apples diet, the nothing but iced coffee diet, nothing but carrots diet. Lots and lots of those types. I never actually lost weight on any of those.
I much prefer mfp and ifym0 -
About twenty years ago, I bought an EMS unit off a commercial on tv...just hook yourself up, turn it on, and no need to do crunches ever again....
lol! What they forgot to mention was, it felt like bolts of electricity zapping thru my skin every 15 seconds, and I couldn't use it more than twice. That was worth the trip back for a refund, believe me! 0 -
JustMissTracy wrote: »About twenty years ago, I bought an EMS unit off a commercial on tv...just hook yourself up, turn it on, and no need to do crunches ever again.... lol! What they forgot to mention was, it felt like bolts of electricity zapping thru my skin every 15 seconds, and I couldn't use it more than twice. That was worth the trip back for a refund, believe me!
I got something like that back in the early 2000's. You wrap it around your waist and...it was just a bad time. it actually burned me!!!
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Lol back in the 70's, or 80's? (man, Im old)...the popular fad was AYDS..not to be confused with aids.
It claimed to lose 10 pounds in 5 days. The main ingredient benzocaine. A local anesthetic. Oh yah, wrapped in a piece of candy.
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My mother put me on a diet where I was eating way too little. I ended up fainting in school.
I tried Nutri System. I consider that a fad or stupid because I learned nothing from it and promptly gained all the weight back.
I did the Cambridge Diet. I think that lasted for two weeks. I don't even remember if I lost anything.
Did raw vegan (not Freelee style) for a while. Didn't lose weight, cost too much, spent so much time preparing food.
And, finally, either paleo or Atkins... I did those for years. Ultimately, they came down to being fads for me because although I was able to eat that way for years, I really didn't learn that it wasn't about WHAT I ate, but it was about HOW much I ate. I only ever lost so much weight and never got down to even where I am now (still 25-30 pounds from goal).
Learning to be conscientious, learning to form habits, learning about sustainability? Those things finally worked for me. Everything else? I consider a fad. I learned what not to do.0 -
I tried the lemon juice, water, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper cleanse thing. I lasted until dinner time on day one of that before deciding it was just too stupid and gross.
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When I was sixteen I tried the cambridge diet, which is essentially a meal replacement diet of shakes, soups, bars etc that restricts calories. First week I lost 11 pounds, after that I lost a few pounds each week. Eventually though I started to cheat because I was really, really, really hungry. I also missed the social aspect of the family dinner as there was no way I could sit there and watch everyone eat a normal meal. It was not a happy time, despite the praise and congratulations I was getting for losing weight. The lost weight was regained fairly quickly once I stopped.
My doctor gave me diet pills when I was seventeen. I'm not sure what type they were, but I do remember moments of feeling faint and being aware that my heart was racing. I did lose some weight while taking them but the side effects frightened me.
A year later, another doctor put me on a diet of 500 calories for a week to prove to me that I could lose weight. Yes, I lost weight. I recall the nutritionist whom the doctor sent me to for recommendations on what to eat for that week laughing in bewilderment and at a loss as to how to put together a healthy diet on so few calories. After that week I was then allowed to eat 800 calories. Yes, I lost weight. During those weeks I was miserable and starving. Not a happy time. I stopped going to the doctors for help and decided I would rather be fat and happy.0 -
I have done,
slim fast
numerous tablets
The Dukan diet
The high carb diet
starvation
the only one that had results was the Dukan diet, i managed to lose 2 stone but i missed my carbs to much to carry on with it and gained it all back.
This is definitely the only diet that don't even feel like i'm restricting what i eat.
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When I was engaged, my then-fiance-now-husband and I were overweight. My mother pressured both of us to try a diet that her sister had done with big results. After about a month of pressure we finally gave in and did it. Here's my story:
The diet was called the HCG diet. The idea behind it is that you take oral drops that simulate the HCG hormone in pregnant women. This hormone feeds on the fat stores in the mother and gives it to the fetus. Supposedly, without a fetus present, and while taking the simulated hormone, the excess fat would be washed out as waste product. So for 21 days you ate an incredibly restrictive diet (it only included chicken, lean steak, shrimp, lettuce, spinach, asparagus, apples, oranges, and strawberries) of only 500 calories per day. And you could only drink plain water, plain coffee, or plain green tea. Absolutely no additives or enhancements. You could have absolutely no fats or oils, including certain make-up or lotions, and no breads. If you plateaued, you did a "steak day" where you didn't eat anything all day but then for dinner had 100 grams of steak and an apple. The idea was that the fat your body was releasing and feeding on kept you in a healthy calorie range. After 21 days, you spent the next 3 weeks slowly introducing more food and eventually were back to normal.
The results were huge. I lost 25 pounds in 21 days and my husband lost 45. But at the end, I had my urine tested and found out that I was in ketoacidosis. Essentially, my liver was getting ready to shut down. As I'm typing all this out, I can't believe how stupid I was to be pressured into trying something like this. Yes, I lost 25 pounds in 21 days (that I gained right back after a couple months) but at the risk of my health. I'm so glad that I've started doing this the right way and the results are even more gratifying this time around. And those HCG drops have been banned by the FDA in the US.
TL;DR: I essentially shut down my liver eating 500 calories a day.
Sounds like the drops had nothing to do with the dramatic weight loss0 -
I think I tried them all between 2006 and 2011. The worst was some diet pills that helped kill appetite and "speed up metabolism". I lost 25 pounds in two weeks because I could barely eat or drink. Then I fainted carrying my son down the stairs at our house and the way I landed broke his leg. I gained it all back when I stopped the pills and started eating again. The guilt of breaking his leg haunts me today.
When my son was 8 or so months old, I tripped over his baby gate while holding him. He fell to the floor and I took him to the emergency room but they said he was fine. Didn't even do any x-rays. Took him to the orthopedist after he wouldn't put weight on his leg and sure enough...it was broken.
While I didn't fall as a result of a fad diet or anything, know that it happens all the time. Even the orthopedist told me that it's a super common injury in toddlers and infants. The good thing is that their bones are soft so they heal faster than an adult would.0 -
tracyannk28 wrote: »JustMissTracy wrote: »About twenty years ago, I bought an EMS unit off a commercial on tv...just hook yourself up, turn it on, and no need to do crunches ever again.... lol! What they forgot to mention was, it felt like bolts of electricity zapping thru my skin every 15 seconds, and I couldn't use it more than twice. That was worth the trip back for a refund, believe me!
I got something like that back in the early 2000's. You wrap it around your waist and...it was just a bad time. it actually burned me!!!
Me TOO!!!0 -
Ugh I've done them all. When I was 15 I was 5'9" 150 pounds and my mom had me convinced I was fat and had me do Atkins with her and that was my first diet fail. I was an emotional wreck on less than 20g carbs a day but, "at least I was losing weight," after a complete unneeded emotional break down I decided to stop. Then I didn't really try to diet again until college because I had made the dance team and I was asked to lose 10 pounds. I did some diet pill and lost what they wanted me to but then when the season was over I stopped taking them and all the weight came back on and then some. The next year I needed to lose weight again for the dance team but I didn't want to gain it all back so I started working out 3 hours a day (more than I studied) and of course the weight came back on after I stopped working out so much because I didn't change my eating habits.
After college I got really into Paleo and eating clean because, "If you eat clean you can eat as much as you want and still lose weight!" which worked for the first 15 pounds but then stopped.
Now I am completely happy doing CICO.
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rankinsect wrote: »For me personally, Atkins was dumb as it was totally unrealistic for me to sustain, and as I've demonstrated for myself later, wholly unnecessary.
Calorie counting with insanely low goals (1300 calories for a 300+lb man is not reasonable at all) was another dumb one, as was trying to eliminate all "bad food".
As to what happened, like many of us, I failed, and regained all the weight I lost plus extra.
I have basically the same experience. I had initial success with Atkins and lost about 70/100lbs that way, I've regained somewhere in the 50lb range. Also have done crash diets and over exercise. I was eating maybe 1000 a day and trying to exercise intensely every day. I ended up vomiting every.single.workout. I was down right terrible to myself.0 -
As a younger girl, when I didn't know much about calories and losing weight, I tried starving myself on flavored waters and / or Trident gum. Other times I tried starving myself on a few bites of whole grain muffin and fruit every day. I also tried eating only fruit or a muffin everyday, starving myself on liquids only - sometimes just a cup of juice a day, other times several cups of sugary drinks, thinking I'd lose weight. I tried eating nothing but "diet" snacks - granola bars, graham crackers, grain bars, diet coke. And, perhaps the stupidest one of all - I tried to starve myself on junk food. Sometimes it was eating nothing bit one or two sugary snacks or desserts a day - very high calorie ones. Or restricting myself to one meal a day and two snack. Sugary snacks like Oreos - five of them - or a big bowl of ice cream, and a large, high calorie dinner from some fast food.0
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Oh, and not to mention the "nothing but fruits and veggies" diet.0
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Oh, what happened? Well, I didn't have a nearby scale to see whether I was losing any weight when I was genuinely starving myself on bits of food or nothing at all, but I certainly did see the results of the bingeing that resulted when I started putting on weight instead of losing it. Man, there was nothing wrong with my original weight. I just made it worse. Lil stupid self.0
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A few years ago I did the Lighterlife diet for 4 months and lost about 60 lbs. Then immediately after went to US for 3 weeks and put 7lbs back on. In fairness I did put about 28 lbs back on and stayed like that for 2 years or so.
Now I am using MFP and sometimes have to eat a piece of cheese or such like to make sure I have consumed enough calories. I have lost about 30lbs and have 16 to go to reach the top of the 'normal' BMI0 -
Ages ago when I was a student, I decided to eat nothing but strawberries for three days. I lasted about day and a half before giving up, and as a consequence couldn't face eating strawberries for about two years after that!0
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I've done too many to list unfortunately. Atkins worked well, until the carb binge took over and I slaughtered several large chocolate Easter bunnies. I also did Medi Weight Loss for a bit which is basically paying tons of money to be told how to do Atkins (they do stimulant diet pills there too but I didn't get them because of my HBP). I had started Herbalife when I found MFP and these forums and learned how simple CICO is.0
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I did the Skinny B*tch diet which is basically just strict veganism. Fruit for breakfast. Nuts for lunch. Tofu for dinner kind of thing. I lost weight but missed eggs and cheese and as soon as I added those to the equation the weight that I had lost came right back. The upside was that the book did teach me a lot about reading ingredients and monitoring what we put into our bodies. Plus the atrocities that the FDA allows. I did stay a vegetarian for 5 years and during that time did not even get as much as a cold.0
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