You Tried What? The Strangest and Most Dangerous Fad Diets

Think you've seen all the crazy things people do to lose weight? Well, I bet this list has a few things you haven't heard of.

No one really knows where this fad diet came from but it is possible to lose weight from only eating Twinkies. Since there are only 150 calories per Twinkie, you can conceivably eat ten a day and still drop the pounds. However, this is a fairly dangerous diet because you are depriving yourself of essential nutrients.

But hey, they have Cellulose Gum in them which can also be found in Diet Pills, Laxitives, and detergent.

Okay, if this doesn't creep you out, nothing will. Just as its name implies, to do this diet you need to have a live tapeworm inside of you. That's right folks, all aboard the crazy train express. A tapeworm is a parasite that usually makes it into humans by the human ingesting contaminated or under-cooked meat. The biggest meat culprit is pork. Untreated, a tapeworm infestation can be lethal. The idea is that it would eat the food in your stomach, thereby saving you the calories. Do yourself a favor, run for your life...

Screaming.

I know I am.

So, if the Tapeworm isn't for you, lets try another wacko diet. The Cigarette Diet. This obviously works on the principal that you smoke a cigarette instead of eating a meal. So that means you are then restricting your calories because SURPRISE cigarettes have no calories. They do, however, have nicotine which is a stimulant. I'm guessing with the stimulant and lack of food in your stomach, you're probably not going to feel that great. Anxiety anyone?

Besides all of that, we know what smoking causes...

Okay, this made me laugh out loud. And probably only under the strange category. The idea behind this fad diet was to make everything you eat look gross by wearing tinted glasses. Once again, this is a way to restrict calories. Personally, I know exactly what a french fry looks like, even if my shades make it appear green.

I'm still going to eat that green french fry.

Perhaps a better fad would be to put something stinky under your nose. If that french fry smells bad, I might not eat it (but obviously I would know that the scent is coming from what I put under my nose.) Sigh. I guess I just can't outsmart my brain.

Yep. Eat cotton balls to make yourself feel fuller.

This is why there are warning labels on blow dryers and directions on Shampoo.

The idea was that you dip them in liquids to make them taste good and then swallow. This led to serious malnutrition. Obviously, cotton balls are not meant for consumption and they can actually do damage to your digestive tract causing serious problems down the line. And by serious, I mean death. They cause choking since chewing them will not break them apart. There are toxins in the synthetics added. These can build up in your body and cause organ damage.

I think a treadmill looks like more fun.

People who follow this diet believe that you can survive on sunlight and oxygen alone. Food does not apply.

Just take a moment to let that settle in.

No Food.

Yeah, I'm not even going to bother .

The Prolinn Diet (AKA The Last Chance Diet) began in the 1970s. With this diet, you are to eat nothing but one drink per day made up of the animal parts that were rejected in the slaughterhouse. This included horns, hooves, and tendons.

Roughly, one to two million people suffered heart attacks whilst on this diet in the seventies. While it was unhealthy to drink the slop made from the byproducts, it was even more unhealthy to starve yourself.

It's just like it sounds. You're allowed to eat fruit. Nothing Else. Not even a single leafy green.

Like many of the other diets, this one is extremely unhealthy. Because all you are eating is fruit, there is no way for the fruit to provide you with enough protein, iron, zinc, vitamin D and calcium. Which means, you may feel lethargic, and pick up illnesses because your immune system is low. It is also damaging to your bones.

There are certainly no shortage of wild and highly dangerous dieting ideas and probably no shortage of people who have harmed themselves by doing them. If it seems too good (or gross) to be true it probably is. These diets are all based on the idea that restricting calories helps people to lose weight. This is true, however, there is no safer way to do it than restricting calories with a balanced nutrition and exercise. I think we need to stop looking for the get skinny quick scheme or the magic pill and just do it the old fashioned way...

With tapeworms!

Just kidding.