list of fad diets 2015

top 10 diets doing it wrong 10. the tongue patch diet the tongue is a marvellous matrix of muscles.virtually inexhaustible, it’s made up of a bunch of muscles that do all kinds of things,allowing us to taste and swallow food–and do important functions like forming wordsso we can talk. the tongue is pretty awesome.

list of fad diets 2015, that’s what makes this first diet, um, particularlyhard to swallow. as it were. the tongue patch diet – which entails astamp-sized tongue patch sewn onto the tongue – isn’t actually a medieval torture device(although it sounds like it should be in a list of “particularly cruel and unusualpunishment devices”). no, the tongue patch

is a modern cosmetic surgery that allegedlyhelps people lose up to 30 pounds a month by, well, forcing them not to eat. this patchmakes eating so painful that people with tongue patches can only consume liquids. risks of a tongue patch include lots of pain,infection of the tongue, looking weird when you start drooling for no reason, and oh–therisk of it dislodging, swallowing it, and choking to death. we’ll pass, thanks. 9. the cotton ball diet perhaps, like us, you went through life thinkingthat people would never sit down and eat a big bag of inedible organic fibre–like cotton,for example. like idiots, we certainly thought

that. we blindly believe that no one wouldever look longingly at a q-tip. we were so, so wrong. cotton is a natural, breathable fibre thatgrows on plants and is awesome because it’s comfortable and easy to wash–and we likeit so much we produce about 25 million tons of it every year. for clothing. not for food. now, it’s apparently a thing where somepeople eat cotton balls as part of a diet strategy. first, to make this dry, inediblefibre tasty, such dieters first soak the cotton balls into something sweet like orange juice.then they eat the cotton balls.

naturally, this poses two big issues. first:cotton balls don’t offer humans the life-sustaining nourishment usually offered by other foodstuffs.second: cotton balls can get lodged in our body, leading to a mass of big cotton blockagein our digestive tracts called a bezoar. this leads to things like choking, gastric ulcers,intestinal bleeding, and gangrene. the good news? a big cotton bezoar in yourgut can help reduce appetite. but since it can lead to tissue death and requires surgicalremoval, we think you should probably leave cotton for your clothing. 8. the kimkins diet very low calorie diets – diets under 800calories – entail risks like fatigue, nausea,

diarrhea, hair loss, heart arrhythmia, stroke,and brain haemorrhage. for that reason, very low calorie diets should be taken up onlyupon supervision of a doctor. that’s one reason this next diet is particularly crazy. the kimkins diet – including its fake testimonialsand reports of lethargy, hair loss, irregular heart beat, and fainting – can be all yoursfor $59.99. the kimkins diet achieved popularity due toan embarrassingly bad 2007 article by woman’s world magazine (that the magazine has sinceapologized for). this diet calls for eating about 500 calories a day and replacing withlaxatives–both of which are dangerous practices. this dangerous dietary regimen is advised– not by a doctor or nutritionist, but – by

a morbidly obese gal by the name of heidikimberly “kimmer” diaz, a woman who used a picture of a russian model to fake a 200lbweight loss. she was sued in a class action lawsuit, and has since filed for bankruptcy. 7. red bull diet red bull may not actually give you wings,but even a single can of the stuff can give you a heightened risk of heart attack andstroke. that’s one of the reasons this next diet is, uh, a little crazy. 23 year-old new zealand woman brooke robertson,hoping to lose a little post-baby weight, took to drinking 14 cans of red bull a day.14 cans. a day. let’s put that into context:

a 12-pack of red bull’ll run you over $18a day–so, not exactly cheap. next, 14 cans of red bull equals about 1,540 calories aday (even more than the often-recommended 1,200 calories a day for women on a diet).14 cans of red bull has a whopping 378 grams of sugar per day–an amount equal to eating94.5 sugar cubes a day. holy moly, that’s a lot of sugar. especially for someone ona “diet.” suffice it to say, brooke lost about 45kgon this diet–probably from having a raging case of insomnia, jitters, and a massive caffeineaddiction. it didn’t end too well, though, and brooke had a heart attack, a two weekhospital stay, and a current heart murmur that won’t go away, as well as constantpain, cramping, and anxiety. um, no pain,

no gain? we think maybe we’ll just cut outthe calories next time. 6. corset diet for about 400 years – particularly duringthe victoria era – corsets were a fashionable way of dress for women (and, er, some “dandies”),despite being viewed also as an “instrument of torture” and female oppression. for a woman on the corset diet, she’ll startout wearing corsets about 2-4 hours a day, and work up to an impressive 12 hours, uppingby 30 minutes a week. apparently, jessica alba swears by it. what could be wrong withthat? well, the problem with corsets is that itcan crush people’s ribs and internal organs.

but what’s a little crushed organs if youcan lose weight? except it also restricts oxygen, and can damage the liver, spleen,and kidneys (it turns out that those organs need oxygen). sorry, jessica alba–we’llstick to the doctors and registered dieticians on this one. 5. ear stapling acupuncture can be traced back to china about2,500 years ago. one assumption of acupuncture is that our bodies have various “acupuncturepoints” that can provide relief. there is contradictory evidence of the efficacy ofacupuncture. a loose derivate of acupuncture is ear stapling.during this procedure, small staples are placed

in the inner cartilage of the ear, and leftin for several weeks (or several months). allegedly, this helps to stimulate appetitecontrol. so what’s the problem? this procedure isoften performed by people without a medical license. sometimes it’s performed in theback of people’s cars, or at state fairs. and it carries significant risk of infectionand permanent disfigurement–and there is no proof that it works. 4. feeding tube diet one of the grossest diets out there is thefeeding tube diet (a.k.a. the k-e – or ketogenic enternal nutrition – diet). this diet wascreated by dr. oliver di pietro. it involves

carrying around a bag of fluid, and wearinga nose drip. a nose drip. that runs from the nose to thestomach. for ten days. gross. the feeding tube diet promises that peoplecan lose up to 20 pounds in ten days… and virtually guarantees they’ll look disgustingwhile doing it. risks include bad breath, constipation, tiredness, emotional challenges,regaining the weight, and well–the absolute grossness of the nose tube that connects toyour stomach. pass. 3. clen forget cocaine and adderall. the next insanedrug that celebrities are rumoured to be taking by the truckload is a hormone growth stimulantcalled clenbuterol – “clen” – which

is approved as a steroid to treat respiratoryillnesses in horses. horses. not humans. it’s not even approvedfor animals that will enter our food chain. now used by some particularly crazy dietersand athletes, its side effects include nausea, dizziness, drowsiness, tremors, vomiting,palpitations, and arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat)–and can cause poisoning. unless you’re a horse,you’ll probably want to stick with good ‘ol cocaine–or better yet, pass on drugsaltogether. 2. hcg diet the hormone human choriogonadotropin is producedin the human body early in pregnancy. it’s that hormone that’s detected in the pregnancytest sticks we pee on. in drugs like novarel,

this hormone is indeed extracted from thepee of pregnant ladies. side effects include: headaches, restlessness,tiredness, and pain from the needle injection site–as well as the less common swellingof ankles, mood changes, and more.oh, and it’s not proven as an effective weight losssolution. for some reason, though, that hasn’t stopped desperate people from using it. hcg was prescribed by a guy named dr. a simeonsin 1954. the problem is that it didn’t work to help the dieters lose weight until thedieters nearly starved themselves. so, along with 125 units of hcg injected daily for 8weeks, the dieters needed to follow a rigid low-calorie diet totally about 500 caloriesa day.

if you follow this diet, you’ll probablylose weight. that’s because you’re eating 500 calories a day, on a risky diet that doesn’tprovide people with rda of protein. the hormone itself doesn’t help, with studies showingthat hcg just isn’t effective in aiding weight loss. 1. breatharianism this one is more than a little crazy. so,imagine a world where you can live on sunshine alone–no food, no water, just the naturalprana breeze. sound nice? well, i guess, if you didn’t love ice cream or pecan pie oranything. nevertheless, this is the reality as alleged by breatharians–people who believethey can live on prana – mainly sunlight

– alone. naturally, not eating results in weight loss.and then, eventually, you die. a self-described breatharian prophet, jasmuheen, claims notto have eaten real food for years. do you find that a little hard to believe? so dida tv station, who challenged her to prove it. turns out–she can’t live on air alone,and she became dangerously dehydrated after only 48 hours–forcing the supervising doctorto shut down the challenge. perhaps breatharians will count that in thewin column–after all, jasmuheen can claim the air was too polluted to get her prana.i guess we’ll never know for sure. i’m personally curious why there are so few johnc. reily-looking breatharians out there who

are virtually gorged on prana–just absolutelystuffed and bloated from prana. i mean, there’s a whole lotta sunshine out there, right? instead,we have multiple cases of breatharians dying of something that looks suspiciously likestarvation. so, dieters of the internet world: skip this crazy fad and maybe just cut calories a bit–for a start.