By Jim Gilbert
eDiets Director of Marketing
It seems to me that many of us have tried some very odd ways to lose weight. And we all have diet horror stories.
Me. I’ve done some stupid things to lose weight. I’ve been struggling with my weight since I stopped playing hockey when I got out of school. Since then, I’ve tried just about every diet under the sun looking for that magic bullet to get my weight off.
While I know that, rationally, no magic diet exists, I’m constantly hearing horror stories. People tell me about all sorts of diets they have done.
Sometimes the conversations go like...
“Oh! OK, I get it now. You mean all I have to do is go to the Amazon Jungle, jump in the river, get covered in blood sucking leeches... and then I lose weight?”
“I got it!”
“You mean I drink three fruit and veggie juice boxes a day... and then I lose weight?”
“Right!”
“So what you do is eat a bowl of rice and a banana 3 times a day... and then you lose weight?”
“I can do that!”
In truth, two of the three diets above I actually did (guess which one I didn’t?).
By far, the worst diet I went on went like this...
“You mean I drink this liquid protein from a bottle that looks like a shampoo bottle... and then I lose weight?” (NOTE to readers: it tasted like shampoo, too!) That one actually landed me in the hospital suffering from dehydration.
Twenty-six years later, what I learned comes down to this (sounds easy right?):
1. Eat less calories than you burn!
2. Exercise!
3. Get your head on straight!
So let’s play a little game. What’s the weirdest, silliest or just plain stupidest diet you have ever done? What’s the craziest diet you’ve heard about? We want to hear your experience.
Go ahead. Share...
Post it below, in the style with “… and then you lose weight?” at the end for bonus points!
Jim
My name is Jim Gilbert and I approve this message!
Comment: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 1:07:00 AM - 
said...
I tried a version of the '3 Day Diet'
- breakfast - black coffee with 1 equal (OR) 2 saltine crackers
- Lunch - 1/2 cup Tuna with 1 slice of toast
- Dinner - 85g of lean meat plus one cup of veggies!
While I did lose 3 Kilos in 3 days - I put on 4 almost as soon as I stopped.
I have also tried meal replacements that tasted like veal. mmmmm spew worthy.
Comment: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 8:17:00 AM - said...
The bacon diet. Let me get this straight. You eat NO carbs, but you MUST have bacon every day and then you losae weight?
I lost weight, but I also gained high colesterol!
Comment: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 8:45:00 AM - said...
All the hotdogs you can eat. I think we were able to have cantaloupe too. This was in the 70's mind you, before processed meat was known to be so evil.
Comment: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 9:28:00 AM - said...
I once was on the Spagettios Diet. I would eat them 3 times a day with whatever raw vegatables I wanted. They were cheap, convienient, and I lost 45 lbs (along with exercise 5 days a week).
Comment: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 9:29:00 AM - said...
Two hard boiled eggs(no yolk) 3 times a day. Veggies & limited fruit...a then you lose weight?
Comment: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 10:03:00 AM - said...
You can't call this a diet. But years ago (in my younger days) I was working as a hair stylist and it was between Thanksgiving & Christmas. We had all kinds of chocolate goodies brought in, and it seemed that was all I was eating and people would comment that I had lost weight, I would tell them that I was on a The Chocolate diet. "What diet!" they would say. I did tell them I was joking. I don't know why I would have lost weight other than I must have burned a lot of calories shopping for Christmas.
Comment: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 11:12:00 AM - said...
A 3 day diet, breakfast was one grapefruit lunch was decent but dinner i had to eat one cup of cottage cheese plain!!! by the second spoonful i was ready to throw up.
Comment: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 10:40:00 PM - said...
seaweed diet a long time ago. seaweed tea, seaweed pancakes, etc. only lasted a few days. enough said.
Comment: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 11:47:00 PM - 
KYLEEN said...
I once "invented" a cereal diet. It had a lot of oatmeal; cold cereal was also part of it. I added fruit sometimes and didn't add sugar. It had lots of variety and was healthy. I would eat that way for about 2-3 weeks, and then go back to regular healthy eating
Diets are really hard for me and being a vegetarian adds to the complexity of t all.
Comment: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 9:53:00 AM - said...
The soup diet! Cabbage, cabbage and more cabbage. Veggies and fruits on alternate days...some red meat one or twice that same week ...and then you lose weight?
Comment: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 4:17:00 PM - said...
The worst diet I every try was the herbal life. First you have to buy all the products cost about $172.00 Breakfast: A cup of milkshakes.
Lunch: Anything you want to eat.
Dinner: Another cup of milkshake.
So you only eat One good time than you drink the herbal life tea at 3:00p.m. which is to clean your intense and then gor dinner you drink another shakee 6:00p.m. I only did it for 3 days no result like the person that sold to me said. It's the worst diet ever!!
Comment: Saturday, April 19, 2008 12:19:00 PM - said...
The master cleanse...you drink 8-12glasses of water,lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup mix,laxatives and salty water and eat NO FOOD for 3 weeks, and then you lose weight?
What nonsense!!! I lost 15 lb. alright but gained 30 immediately i went back to eating moderately. Most days i was grumpy and too weak to get out of bed. I believe at one point i saw the white light!
Comment: Saturday, April 19, 2008 7:34:00 PM - said...
My friend tried the 2 boiled eggs and tall glass of grapefruit juice-3 times a day diet. It was supposed to last for 2 weeks. I think she lasted maybe 2 days.
Comment: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 8:45:00 AM - The Short (dis)Order Cook said...
Actually you should eat FEWER calories than you burn.
Professional writers should know better.
Comment: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 9:49:00 AM - said...
Eat 650 to 800 calories per day, have vitamin injections in your belly or butt three times per week, pee in a cup and have it tested for 'cheating' 2 to 3 times per week, spend $100+ dollars per week on the diet and supplements, and do no exercise while you metabolism, energy, and mmod plummet. It worked- 90lbs lost in 5 months and 4 years have passed- but that's because I learned to eat modestly and exercise regularly WHILE I did the crazy diet.
Comment: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 2:50:00 PM - said...
when i was still in college i tried eating a cup of milk with 1 pack of cracker 3 times a day then lose weight 15lbs in month but gain it back when i go back to my eating routine lol
Comment: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 1:16:00 AM - said...
The two diets I've used in the past were #1 The food poisoning diet & #2 The No Money Diet. Both of which are GREAT short term.
The food poisoning diet is not one I'd reccommend to my worst enemy. My mom, sister, and I went out one Sunday afternoon and had some seafood at a Mexican Resturant. The next morning we were all tossing that fist back where it came from (not to mention the chips and salsa). I lost 4 1/2 pounds in one day. The bad news is I gained it all back in a week.
The no money diet basically dictates what you can - and most likely - can NOT buy because you simply have no money. A friend of mine praised my willpower while on vacation because I had breakfast bars for breakfast and slimfast bars for lunch all to top with a 1 chili dog and water for dinner. The problem was I had $60 dollars for a week of food - and anything else I may be interested in buying. So I really had no choice. I HAD to be frugal if I wanted to last the week w/o starving.
Where this diet falls apart is whenever anyone offered me free food, it was ALL OVER! I eat anything that doesn't affect my pocket book. So in the end, I change nothing.
Comment: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 10:14:00 PM - said...
I can't think of one diet that was the craziest, but what I think has been crazy is the number of different ones that I have tried, each time thinking this would be the magic pill that would make me thin.
Comment: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 10:28:00 PM - said...
The Low (Cash} Flow Diet dictated by exactly that. It consisted of Raisin Bran and water -- in the cereal. Lost weight, but would have killed for a potato with sour cream and butter if I had the strength. Warning: don't try this diet at home : )
Comment: Thursday, September 18, 2008 11:08:00 AM - said...
I don't know about a worst diet, so much as the sheer number of diets I have put myself through. Everything from Scarsdale, to nutrisystem, weight watchers, and a host of other wacky things from friends or magazines. I have made a vow to myself that I will not try anymore gimmiks.
Comment: Sunday, September 21, 2008 1:09:00 PM - tapdancer said...
the weirdest thing i tried was probably south beach induction, yea i didn't eat any sugar or carbs for 2 straight weeks and then you lose weight?
my coworkers were doing the grapefruit diet before and the cabbage soup diet, i don't like half of hte foods on there so i never tried them.
Comment: Sunday, September 21, 2008 6:45:00 PM - ringy said...
I've never believed in weird diets. It always seemed to me that you needed to eat a nutritionally balanced diet if it was going to take a long time to get where you needed to go.
The weirdest I ever got was to try the Atkins diet when it first came out--was that 30 years ago? It gave me such a headache! So I knew right away that balanced was the way to go.
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