25 Crazy Ways People Have Tried to Stay Thin

Staying thin has always been an obsession by some figure-conscious people. It can be partly blamed on body shaming and bullying, that is why more and more people shift to trying different diet fads instead of the tried and tested healthy eating and exercise.

These diet fads, however, are not an assurance that you will actually lose weight. In fact, they might even cause you to get sick. Here are some of the craziest and most extreme ways people have tried in order to stay thin:

25. Air diet

Also known as “l’air fooding,” in France, it is but a fancy term for starving yourself. You just go through the motions of preparing the food, setting the table, smelling the meal but not eating it.

24. Insulin

In an attempt to lower blood sugar and potentially break down the carbs, people inject insulin. This is extremely dangerous and could put a person in comatose.

23. Apples and coffee

Literally eating and drinking apples and coffee the whole day. Coffee is a known diuretic to lessen your water weight and apples to give you energy. This won’t work and will just make you cranky.

22. Waist wrapping

Waist wrapping was designed to sweat out excess water weight. Too much sweating might lead to dehydration.

21. Sleeping Beauty diet

This diet involves popping a sleeping pill every time you get a craving so that you don’t end up eating. This can lead to muscle atrophy and possible overdose.

20. Bee Pollen

Said to be a superfood, bee pollen contains all the essential nutrients and can help boost your energy. To this date, none of the claimed effects have been proven.

19. The Color Blue

It is said that the color blue is an appetite-suppressant. So if you find yourself overeating, look at anything blue. This is never proven if it actually works, though.

18. Baby Food Diet

A serving of baby food ranges from 20 to 100 calories so some believe that replacing your meal with baby food can make you lose weight. The thing is, the lack of essential nutrients for adults can lead to sickness as well.

17. Drugs

The most-used and also most dangerous of all weight loss fads ever known to man.

16. Mononucleosis

You wouldn’t want to go through this diet, that’s for sure. Mononucleosis is a dangerous virus that affects your appetite and pulls your energy and immune system down.

15. Drunkorexia

Cutting down on food and replacing it with alcohol. Apart from the fact that it leaves you drunk in the process, it also leads to serious health problems.

14. Gummy Bear Cleanse

Sugar-free gummy bears contain a potent laxative, lycasin. Eat just about a dozen and you’re supposedly going to shed the weight.

13. Cabbage Soup Diet

Eating only cabbage soup for a day will give you 1,000 calories instead of the average 2,000. You’ll likely lose the pounds but any strenuous activity is not recommended.

12. Ipecac Syrup

Ipecac syrup is used by doctors for patients who have experienced food poisoning.

11. Wearing a corset

There really is no medical proof that corsets can help you lose weight. It can even cause undue stress on your organs for wearing it too tight.

10. Feeding tube

Used for patients in the psychiatric ward, a feeding tube is inserted in the nose down to the esophagus where a low-calorie solution is pumped directly to your stomach. This will send the body into ketosis.

9. Urine injections

People inject urine from pregnant women tricking the brain into thinking the body is pregnant from the hormone of the urine. The body increases metabolism as a result of the brain trickery.

8. Spoon diet

The diet is such that you only eat food that can be eaten by spoon and nothing else.

7. Ana Boot Camp

Anorexic boot camp websites that promote the anorexic lifestyle, eating only between 0 to 500 calories in a day have become the fad these days. This can lead to possible heart attack and organ failure.

6. Stomach stapling

Doctors staple a section of the stomach to limit the amount of food passing. This is a medical procedure often done for life-threatening obesity patients.

5. Cotton Ball diet

Cotton balls are soaked in juice and water and ingested so as to trick the body that you are not hungry. This is crazy as the cotton can only collect in the intestinal tract and cause pain.

4. Tapeworm diet

This involves eating a real tapeworm so that the tapeworm will eat anything you ingest. This is absolutely insane as it will only make you even sicker.

3. Master Cleanse

Also known as the lemon cleanse, this involves drinking water with lemon, cayenne paper and maple syrup throughout the day to cleanse the body of toxins. This is absolute torture.

2. Tongue patch

Sewing a small patch of fabric on top of your tongue will make eating very painful. You obviously resort to a full liquid diet, making you lose energy.

1. Fasting

Skipping meals to lose weight can make you shed the pounds quickly but can also mean harm to your body in the long run when done excessively.