Weight Watchers: The Classic. I did DubDub for the first time with my mom when I was 14. I remember I weighed in at 142, and I think I lost about 12 pounds before abandoning the program. I've been back many times since then. In 1999 I lost around 25 pounds and briefly possessed the secret password to size 6, but the Skinny Mafia went and changed the locks on me once they caught me stuffing my face whilst nursing a broken heart. (Jerks.)
The Cookie Diet: you know if it sounds too good to be true it usually is. I tried this one back in the early 90s when a girlfriend of mine was trying to make a bit of extra cash by selling these cookies out of her home. I think the active ingredient in them is straw. They add little bits of chalk-olate chips to entice you, but don't be fooled.
Slim Fast: I wonder how many women have a half-empty tin of this shite hidden away somewhere in one of their cupboards? You can say that a liquid meal replacement is filling, but if I don't get to chew and swallow, I'm not gonna feel full and/or satisfied. (I do like the cookie dough meal replacement bars, though. Problem is, I never stop at just one.)
I did NutriSystem with my mom during my final year of university - 1991/92 - and lost 45 pounds. I was 120 and three quarters for about ten minutes. I remember going to Easter dinner at my in-laws' house after I'd reached my goal weight. I ate everything in sight. I ate so much that I poisoned myself. I have never been that sick from eating - I had food coming out of both ends of me that night. (Sorry, you had to read that. It's way better than having to go through it, trust me.) I think going for seven months on this restricted diet may have challenged my body's ability to digest normal food. That's what happens when you don't cheat, yo's.
I tried hypnosis for a few months in the winter of 2002. I liked it because it was geared towards changing my attitude and behaviour around food. I pitched my scale and just decided to focus on eating smaller portions of healthier foods. It worked for a little while but it took a lot of time - I had to go into the centre around 2 or 3 times a week (once a week you have a private session with an actual hypnotherapist, the other times they just put these crazy trippy glasses on you that show some kinda Jefferson Airplane psychedelia, you sit in a deluxe La-Z-Boy and they play a tape by the HypnoGuru, repeating all the rabbit food mantras), plus I had to listen to my hypnosis tape (they taped the weekly personal sessions) every day. It got so I just started falling asleep during the sessions. Another thousand bucks down the drain.
The Master Cleanser a.k.a. "The Lemonade Diet": yes, I really did go without solid food for 10 days straight, back in winter 2003. I still hadn't replaced my scale at that time, so I don't know how much I lost, but my clothes were definitely much looser afterwards. The booklet (pictured) is actually very interesting and apparently this cleanse can be helpful (if you are open to this sort of alternative healing) for a lot more than just weight loss. Basically you consume water mixed with freshly squeezed lemon juice, pure, dark maple syrup and cayenne pepper (for reals) and nothing else. For minimum 10 days. By the end you are fantasizing about gum. It was an interesting experiment but any time I've tried it since, I haven't made it past day 2 or 3.
Jenny Craig: My most recent foray into supporting the diet industry. I've done JC off and on since summer 2003. Up until this past fall, I was on it for 2 or 3 years straight. I actually lost around 30 pounds the last time, and kept it off for a year and a half or so, which is unprecedented for me, only to fall in love and toss the whole moderation thing out the window of a speeding car. Splat... fat. Ah well. I did mention a long time ago that, while I totally get how JC works for a lot of people, ultimately, it was not helping me with the bingeing issue, as it allowed me to forego mindfulness in the kitchen.Which brings me to my latest (and I'm sure you will all agree) greatest method: blogging. Okay, that's not a weight loss method. The method is actually good old fashioned healthy(ish) eating and regular exercise. But the key has been the accountability and support from all of you. It's really kept me on track, or helped me right myself when I've strayed.
So, anybody out there have any crazy dieting methods they're willing to admit to?
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PS While searching for images to accompany "The Cookie Diet", I came across this bizarre admission by Madonna to a radio show regarding the diet's effect on her husband's libido.
ReplyDeleteDiets don't work.
ReplyDeleteOnly changing your attitude about food does.
Have you seen Women's Health? I read Men's Health. Both are great. Both also offer free emails with lots of great tips. Google them.
Hi Todd, yeah, that was kinda what I was getting at by posting this big long list of fad diets I've tried over the years. If they did work, I wouldn't be here. (Although one "diet" I never tried was Atkins/low carb. I looked at the website but just didn't see myself adhering to anything that strict. Moderation works best for me.)
ReplyDeleteI subscribe to Women's Health e-mails. Also Prevention.com. I find the latter is sort of obsessed with fountain of youth and dieting tricks of the trade. Both are spotty as far as useful information, but on occasion I've found really interesting and informative info on both. (I do find the Women's Health stuff to be slightly more focussed on... well, health.
The Women's/Men's Health folks are the people who published the Eat This! Not That series, which I blogged about a couple weeks back. I think they are probably pretty trustworthy on the scale of opportunistic douchebags to genuinely concerned about health and wellness, insofar as the diet and health industry is concerned.
Wow Linny, we must have been separated at birth. I too did WW with my mom (twice), JC (also twice), phen-fen (more than twice) and now am on the Dr. Larua diet: eat less, move more. Oh, and I don't shovel food in after 7:30. Since we don't get finished feeding the horses until around 8:00, I've been having a healthy snack around 6:00, then a smidgen of food with the hubby...but always the dastardly wine. Oh, and my already too think hubby eats according to "Diet Evolution" which is very much like Adkins but geared toward longevity. Seems that skinny people live longer and healthier.
ReplyDelete(Oh, also did the hypnosis thing, cabbage soup, Scarsdale Medical Diet, Zone...how pathetic is this??? Maybe a contest for who's failed at the most diets???)
Your BFF Kat
Hiya Kitty! I had to employ the Goog for phen-fen. For the benefit of anybody else not in the know, my best friend Wikipedia has this to say:
ReplyDeleteFen-phen was an anti-obesity medication (an anorectic) which consisted of two drugs: fenfluramine and phentermine. Fenfluramine, and later, a related drug, dexfenfluramine, was marketed by American Home Products, now known as Wyeth, but were shown to cause potentially fatal pulmonary hypertension and heart valve problems, which eventually led to their withdrawal and legal damages of over $13 billion.
Eeeeyikes. I forgot to mention in the inventory that I have occasionally (read: regularly) combed the diet aids aisle of the pharmacy in search of a Magic Pill. Once or twice I bought some crappy product that had zero effect.
My dad tells a funny story about how my mom's doctor prescribed "diet pills" to her back in the 60s. They didn't know it was speed until my mom turned into the Tasmanian Devil of housewives, zooming around the house in a cleaning frenzy, and then crashing dramatically when they decided the diet pills were making her a little bit... strange.
Eating less and moving more seems like a sound plan, anyway. I call that the Dr. Lindsay diet, except I'm not a real doctor. (Hang on, I don't think Dr. Laura is a real doctor either, is she?!)
Hang in there Kat. One of these days we will win, perhaps by attrition.
I did Slim Fast once about 10 years ago when a girlfriend was doing it. I didn't exercise and it didn't work. Then about a year or so later I tried it again, but also started doing a Pilates mat workout (20 minutes) daily 2 hours after dinner and just water or tea for the rest of the night. It worked. I felt and looked better than I did ever. I was able to resume a normal diet sans the SF, because it seemed my metabolism made the difference.
ReplyDeleteSo in a sense, I agree that a healthy diet along with regular exercise is the way to go.
Patti
My future memoirs will read "My life as a yo-yo". lol. I think that I started dieting when I was in my tweens when my mother started telling me I had "such a lovely face..."
ReplyDeleteI have done WW at various times throughout my life, a variety of diet pills, and my favorite, Dr. Bernstein, where I subsisted for about 6 months on a diet of basically iceberg lettuce and water, eating less than 500 calories a day. I thought that it was fantastic at the time - I lost 80 lbs and went down to a 150 lbs. Never mind the little problems like chunks of hair falling out of my head and passing out on the subway. When I wanted to stop the program at that weight (at the insistence of friends who told me I looked like a walking ghost) I was told that I wasn't at my "target weight" according to their charts (which I believe was between 135-140 at 5'8 1/2) and so I couldn't go on their maintenance program. Needless to say ALL of the weight came back within a year since eating any normal amount packed on the weight. I don't seem to have a problem losing weight and eating healthily when the going is good. But being an emotional eater it is the stressful times that challenge me and pack on the weight.
I noticed that Kirstey Alley was back in the news this week as she struggles again with her weight. I think that it is so sad that society is so vicious and critical of those who are obviously struggling both emotionally and physically. And with this as our societal model, we wonder why we beat ourselves up when we fall off the diet wagon ourselves…
Pattilicious, for sure, the Slim Fast plan can work, as can the Cookie Diet, or any sort of meal replacement program out there, if you adhere to it and get some freakin exercise. Probably where most people struggle is the food addiction part (and by most people, I mean me, since my world view is the world view, on my blog at least...) There's hunger and then there's craving. Hunger is a piece of cake compared to craving. Mmmm. Cake. I gotta go.
ReplyDeleteJEN! My girl! Oy. I've often wondered about Dr. Bernstein. For readers outside of Canada, Dr. Bernstein Diet & Health Clinics are found in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia (and apparently also in Florida and Virginia). They advertise themselves as "medically supervised" weight loss. You have to go in to the clinic at least 3 times a week so they can monitor you and give you vitamin shots or something (so I hear). They promise that you can lose 16 to 20 pounds per month. It's a pretty enticing thought; strange I have not yet given in to the call of Doc B.
It's great to get some feedback here from someone who tried it. I knew a woman who lost weight that way. The thing I found really strange was that she was not allowed to exercise while she was on the program. She lost a ton of weight, to be sure. She was only able to start integrating exercise into her lifestyle when she was on maintenance. That ain't right.
I've been following Kirstie Alley on Twitter. I heard about her weight gain around a month ago or so. She decided to get healthy again and share her experiences via Twitter. Mostly her tweets are kinda crazy and fun. She sure hates Harvey Levin at TMZ. Also she makes jokes about Conan since he thinks it's fine to do Kirstie Alley fat jokes. I like her humanity, and I wish her all the best. Hey, how can we get her to visit D-Weighted?!!
Yeah they are medically supervised. You go in three times a week for B12/B6 injections, and have to submit urine samples that prove that you haven't cheated. The program essentially throws your body into ketosis and so you really do lose a ton of weight really quickly. But the second that you stop your body goes haywire and packs the weight back on. I also spoke to my doctor about the program and she told me about another client of hers who actually developed a hoarding problem/psychosis as a result of being starved for so long. And yes you do lose 20 lbs a month - But the cost is high in many ways" a) financially (I belive it is not about $500 /month) b) emotionally, as well as c) psysically. The only way that I would recommed the program is for someone who wants to lose weight for a specific event (like a wedding) and doesn't care if it comes back.
ReplyDeleteWhoops, I realize I never stopped by to respond to this, which is sucky because I really appreciate the insider's account of the Dr. Bernstein experience. I am not surprised to hear that such a drastic diet led to eating disorders for some clients. I am surprised to hear you have to do urine tests to prove you're not a food-cheat! HA! That's hilarious! No wonder it's so effective. If I had Nurse Ratched scowling at me as she handed me a Dixie cup three times a week, I'd be scared to even look at a carbohydrate.
ReplyDeleteI just remembered you are a self-confessed carboholic. I can't believe you lost weight this way! No wonder you gained it back so quickly, if you were denying yourself some of your favourite foods. Balance is tough to achieve. Sounds like Dr. Bernstein is no help in this department!