20 Of The Weirdest Retro Diet Trends That Weren't Helping Anyone
Diets You Should Never Try
From cabbage soup to cotton balls, some of the strangest diet trends in history prove that people will try almost anything to lose weight. While many of these fads offered quick weight loss, it wasn't sustainable or healthy, and some even had lethal side effects. Here are 20 of the most bizarre fad diets in history that weren't doing anyone any favors.
1. Cabbage Soup Diet
The cabbage soup diet was a fad diet in the 1980s and 90s in which you eat basically nothing but cabbage soup for a week to "detox" the body, severely restricting calories. From this diet, you lose water weight and muscle, not fat, and the weight loss isn't sustainable because cabbage soup doesn't give you the nutrients you need.
2. Grapefruit Diet
The grapefruit diet dates all the way back to the 1930s, but became especially popular in the 70s. The idea is to eat half a grapefruit followed by low-calorie, high-protein meals because grapefruit supposedly contains a fat-burning enzyme. Any weight loss that occurs from this diet, however, has nothing to do with some kind of grapefruit magic; it's just from eating fewer calories.
3. Tapeworm Diet
The tapeworm diet is one of the most extreme and dangerous diets that has ever existed. It involved intentionally swallowing a parasitic worm that would eat a portion of your food, helping you lose weight from the inside out, but it could also cause serious health problems like meningitis, epilepsy, and dementia.
Mogana Das Murtey and Patchamuthu Ramasamy on Wikimedia
4. Smoking Diet
We now know how bad smoking is for your health, but there was a time when people would use cigarettes to suppress their appetite. In the 1920s, tobacco company Lucky Strike even used the tagline "Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet" in their marketing campaigns.
5. Alkaline Diet
The alkaline diet is based on the idea that eating foods that make your blood acidic after being digested causes disease. Foods that are alkaline are things like fruits, nuts, legumes, and veggies, and those that are acidic are processed foods, sugar, meat, dairy, and whole grains. While avoiding processed foods will probably improve your health, it has nothing to do with your blood's pH.
6. Cotton Ball Diet
The cotton ball diet involved eating a cotton ball dipped in juice or smoothies to create the feeling of fullness without consuming calories. However, since cotton balls are not food and can't be digested, they cause serious health problems.
7. Sleeping Beauty Diet
The sleeping beauty, which surfaced in the mid-20th-century diet, involved taking sleeping pills or sedatives to sleep through meals. However, overusing sedatives can be very dangerous, and losing weight in this way will lead to loss of muscle and nutrient deficiencies.
8. Baby Food Diet
The baby food diet involved replacing adult meals with jars of baby food, restricting calories, and causing simple and fast weight loss. While baby food is nutritious for infants, it isn't designed to meet the nutritional needs of adults and lacks protein, fiber, and healthy fats.
9. Vinegar Diet
The vinegar diet dates back all the way to the 1820s. The idea is to drink vinegar before meals to suppress appetite and boost metabolism. There's no evidence to suggest that vinegar makes you lose weight, and drinking it straight can erode tooth enamel and cause gastrointestinal upset.
10. The Special K Diet
The Special K Diet was a heavily marketed weight-loss plan from Kellogg's that suggested replacing meals with bowls of Special K cereal. While following this diet may result in weight loss from calorie restriction, it's mostly water weight, making it unsustainable. What's more, Special K is actually pretty sugary and lacks fiber, healthy fats, protein, and other nutrients.
11. The Lemon Detox
The Lemon Detox is known by many names, including "The Maple Syrup Diet" and "Master Cleanse," but the core remains the same: drinking a mixture of lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and water instead of food for a week. The claim is that this will cleanse toxins from the body, but in reality, you just lose water weight and muscle, and can actually slow down your metabolism.
12. Blood Type Diet
The blood type diet, which came about in the 1990s, claims that your blood type determines what kinds of foods are right for your body, but there's no scientific evidence to support this. Following a regimen based on your blood type results in a nutritional imbalance and possible deficiencies.
13. Wine & Eggs Diet
The wine and eggs diet was originally published in a 1977 edition of Vogue. It's a three-day crash diet that involves consuming a lot of wine and eggs, with a steak for dinner, using the wine as an appetite suppressant. The result is excessive alcohol consumption, nutrient deficiency, and severe calorie restriction.
14. The F-Plan
The F-Plan was a high-fiber 1,500-calorie diet popular in the 1980s. While it stressed the importance of fiber, a vital nutrient, people on this diet were actually increasing their fiber intake way too quickly, which caused gastrointestinal issues and intestinal blockages.
15. Laxatives For Weight Loss
In the 90s, it was popular to use laxatives for weight loss. However, they only cause temporary changes in weight and can lead to dehydration and loss of electrolytes.
16. The Milk Diet
The milk diet was popularized in the 1920s by a bodybuilder who advocated for consuming nothing but milk. However, this results in a severe lack of fiber, vitamin C, and possible digestive issues.
17. The Inuit Diet
Popularized by an Arctic explorer in the 1930s, the Inuit Diet consists of eating nothing but whale meat, caribou, and raw fish. This diet is rich in omega-3s, but it lacks fiber and other nutrients that come from vegetables. Not to mention, it's hard to come by caribou and whale blubber if you live in a city.
18. Banana & Milk Diet
The banana and milk diet was popularized in the 1930s as a 10-day crash diet where all you have is skimmed milk and bananas. While you may lose some temporary water weight, this kind of weight loss isn't sustainable, and you'll likely have nutrient deficiencies and digestive issues.
19. The Mastication Diet
In the early 1900s, there was a man who lost 40 pounds by chewing each bite 100 times. He wrote a best-selling book popularizing the diet. He claimed it didn't matter what you eat as long as you chew it excessively, but this may end up in nutrient imbalances and unhealthy eating.
20. Arsenic Diet Pills
Arsenic is deadly poisonous, but it was actually marketed as a diet pill in the 19th century. In low doses, it acts as a stimulant and may actually lead to weight loss, but it could easily be abused and overdosed on.
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