With health and fitness at the forefront of modern society, it seems as if everyone you meet has a new weight loss or dieting strategy. Yet there are always those crazy tips and techniques which make you stop, laugh and doubt they will help anyone lose weight. HCX has compiled a list of the 10 most bizarre weight loss strategies and diets, for your amusement.
Please remember these are ridiculous strategies and we do not encourage, support or recommend any of them.
1. Cold Baths: Since Egyptian times, cold baths have been shown to significantly raise metabolic rates due partly due to excess amounts of shivering. The cold water coupled with the body’s reaction to it is a quick way to burn calories. Advocates of this theory suggest a cold bath after the last meal of the day.
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2. The Feeding Tube Diet: Yes you are right; people actually use feeding tubes commonly seen in hospitals and retirement homes, in an attempt to lose weight. Tubes are attached to the body and then protein-fat liquid is dripped into the stomach at only 800 calories each day, with no food needed to satisfy your hunger. The most ridiculous part of this diet is that every time you want to eat you require assistance to hook yourself up to the tube, it causes you to really act as if you are medically impaired!
3. Coffee: Two black coffees on an empty stomach are supposed to help burn calories quicker. Myth or fact, this is good news for coffee lovers everywhere.
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4. The Drunk Diet: Brought to the public’s attention by its founder: Lady Gaga, the drunk diet is a crazy weight loss strategy revolving around exercise and alcohol. The diet lets you drink whatever you want throughout the day and night, as a partial substitute for food provided you exercise daily – even when you’re nursing a hangover! Gaga herself says the most satisfying workout is done after a night out on the town, but who can trust a strategy created by the weirdest woman in the music industry?
5. Sniffing Food: Dr Alan R. Hirsch of the Smell and Taste Treatment research foundation in Chicago conducted a study which showed the more you sniff your food, the less hungry you become as you are able to trick your brain into believing it is actually consuming it. This is best conducted 5 minutes before eating a meal, as you will feel less hungry and therefore eat less. However, no further studies have actually supported that this actually works!
6. The Diet Tongue Patch: This is a patch which is actually sewn into your tongue to prevent you from overeating. The patch is designed to make food consumption uncomfortable, so forces you to turn to drinking fluids instead. The patch can stay on the tongue from between 1-6 weeks, causing drastic weight loss. However, it is extremely painful to endure and is reported to cause speech impediments.
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7. Mirrors: A recent American dietary study showed that people eating meals in front of the mirror only eat 1/3rd of what they usually would, as the brain has an aversion to watching ourselves eat, especially if you want to shed some pounds. It helps you keep your mind focused and seeing yourself eat will give you the willpower to stop excessive binging. This is surely taking dieting too far? It would be both antisocial and highly obsessive.
8. Redecorate: A relatively new dieting phenomenon is all about the colour blue. It has been suggested that colours such as yellow or red stimulate the appetite, whereas the mellow tones of blue or green help keep your hunger in check. Ways to act on this weight-loss strategy include: painting your kitchen blue, using blue tablecloths, cutlery, plates and even using blue food colouring in dishes!
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9. ‘Le Petit Secret’: French fitness fanatic Valerie Orsoni has started a craze of wearing a ribbon around your stomach under your clothes when going out to eat. This way you are constantly reminded of your stomach and what to eat. What’s more, is that you will know when to stop eating when the ribbon feels tighter around your belly, and over eating will even cause a little discomfort as an order to stop eating.
10. Cinnamon: We all know the cinnamon challenge is deadly, but incorporating more cinnamon into our daily diets is supposedly a good thing. Studies have shown that a mere quarter of a teaspoon of cinnamon each day can lower the blood sugar, cholesterol, and cause your hunger levels to decrease. However, this isn’t an excuse to binge on Cinnamon, but more of a suggestion to invest in some cinnamon powder to sprinkle in your coffee or on your cereal in the morning.
Image credits: lovevancouverfest.com, eatinclean.tumblr.com, weblogs.baltimoresun.com, juliatorrejonn.wordpress.com, gnet.org