How (Not) to Lose Weight

Today’s post is a bit different. I am going to share with you a paper I wrote last year for my English class (Advanced Composition). I worked with my wonderful teacher to create a satirical paper that I enjoyed writing! I also added pictures to make it even more fun!

How (Not) to Lose Weight

“Do you need to lose weight fast? Do you want toned arms and legs? Do you want six-pack abs overnight? If so, try our product today, and we guarantee that you will lose 20 pounds in the first week!” How many times have we heard this campaign? Suddenly, a new “miracle food” reduces weight, and a food that we have happily been eating for years becomes deadly. Then, a new product like a magical waistband slims and tones the belly in just one week. It sounds too good to be true! They usually are too good to be true, and hundreds of these miracle diets and products lurk around waiting for the next culprit to fall into their traps. Which products and diets actually work, and which ones will leave you and your body drained and flabbergasted?

The first of these, the “carbo-deprivo,” will help you lose weight fast by cutting all carbohydrates out of your diet. You heard right-no pasta, fruit, bread, oats, dessert, or anything else that contains carbohydrates. This diet allows you to eat all the bacon and butter you want, and you will still lose weight. Even though high fat and protein diets damage the intestinal track and clog arteries, this diet will “do wonders.” I know that the body demands complex carbohydrates in order to function properly; but the point of this diet is to lose weight fast, not to be healthy in the long run.

If this “carbo-deprivo” meal plan does not work for you, plenty of other processed meal plans can be yours at a click of a button. Nutrisystem, The Cookie Diet, Jenny Craig, and Atkins all allow you to eat sweets. How can you lose weight while eating sweets? That’s easy, the companies machine process the food to make them less-caloric. Take for example Nutrisystem’s macaroni and cheese, it could break a record by having over 40 ingredients. I’d definitely take their machined-processed meals made with ingredients I can’t even pronounce any day over my homemade, five-ingredient pasta.

If you would rather not have every single meal sent to you, and just have to buy one or two ingredients, then maybe these other all-or-nothing diets will make you happier. The first contestant, the cabbage soup diet, allows you to eat as much food as you want, as long as its just cabbage soup. Cabbage soup doesn’t sound good? No problem, you can lose just as much weight on the grapefruit diet. It’s super easy to keep track of your meals because the only thing you eat is grapefruit. You don’t like grapefruit? No problem, the purple food diet contains more variety because you can eat anything purple: grapes, red onions, purple cabbage, and any other purple food you can think of. I actually read something like this in the fitness bikini body training book, something about a color guided diet , eat red one week , eat green the other and so on.Surely it’s a minor thing, however, that these one-ingredient diets can cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, and light-headedness. Also, if you don’t follow them correctly you may find yourself gaining weight. Forget about the side effects! These diets will help you lose weight fast if you follow them to the letter.

Along with the all-or-nothing diets, plenty of diet “does and don’ts” sayings can help prevent you from weight gain. For example, the chewing diet has its dieters thoroughly chew every bite forty times. This excessive chewing is supposed to help you burn more calories than you eat, and help you feel fuller faster. Never mind that it will take you a good hour or so to eat an apple, this diet emphasizes chewing foods until they become liquid. Doesn’t liquid steak sound yummy? If you would rather not chew each bite you take, maybe the liquid diet better suits you. In the liquid diet, you have to drink everything, so whip out those blenders and start pureeing your dinner. A different diet that includes all liquids, called the lemonade-cleanse, requires dieters to drink a special concoction of lemon juice, water, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. A couple weeks on this diet will have you lose up to twenty-pounds! Sure it might sound like starvation, and all you may lose is water weight and muscle; but just think about the potential pounds lost. Another diet saying says that any food eaten past six in the evening will turn into fat. Yes, you heard right, it will turn into fat. This means that you are absolutely forbidden from stepping into your kitchen after six in the evening. This is what I call a senior retirement-home curfew.

“Carbo-deprivo,” all-or-nothing diets, or liquid diets may sound ridiculous, but isn’t this the decade of nonsense? Eating healthy-wholesome foods might sound like a better approach to dieting; but according to the sales people on the television and computer, the best approach means restriction, starvation, and stress. Now that you’ve learned this, what restrictive diet will you choose: the one that makes you faint, or the one that drives you crazy?

Thought-provoking, mind-prodding question of the day:

What do you think about the crazy diets today?

P.S. Alyssa is having an awesome giveaway over at Gluten Free Muse, and Kelsey at Snacking Squirrel! Check ’em out!