Half the fun of picking on the right program to lose weight by is often in the part where you get to check off the crazy fad diets that no one in their right mind would actually consider. But sadly, fads can be extremely popular sometimes; it's just something about general popularity - people often neglect to critically weigh the benefits of a program when they know that it's popular with a celebrity or something. Let's look at a list of fad diets to lose weight by that are either popular right now, or have been in the recent past. These are actually from a list prepared by the Weight Management Dietetic Practice group of the American Dietetic Association as a list of diets to beware of. So as funny as they are, these actually are serious diets that some poor misguided folk somewhere try to follow every day.
California is great for movies, technology and New Age fad diets to lose weight by. One of the recent ones is the Master Cleanse diet. As you probably can guess by the name, it's supposed to cleanse your digestive tract out. This used to be a very stubbornly persistent idea about two centuries ago in Victorian England, and it's interesting to see that it's made a comeback here again. You're supposed to start out by downing a large measure of salty water first thing in the morning, follow it up by drinking a scary mixture of lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup four times a day, and then capping it all off with a laxative tea at night. That's all you get - there's nothing else you're allowed to eat. It doesn't allow for nutrients or fiber or anything - for ten days. Starving yourself like this certainly will let you lose lean body mass. But you will bounce back pretty quickly once you're done; not to mention, the malnutrition will probably come back to haunt you afterwards.
Next in our list of diets to lose weight by is the fairly unbelievable Ear Stapling method. It's actually an acupuncture-related procedure. The belief is that there are nerve endings in the ears that help suppress the appetite. They pierce the right part of your year, and hope that the pressure on the nerve from the staple will do the trick. To begin with, the only thing that there is any scientific evidence for here is that you will end up mutilating your ear and maybe getting an infection. As for the suppressed appetite, it never seems to happen. You would probably be much better off sticking to adding a lot of fruits and vegetables to your diet.
These bizarre diets seem to get more interesting by the year; case in point - the air diet. Dharma from Dharma and Greg would probably love this one - apparently they believe that when you align yourself to vital energies present in the universe, air is all you will ever need to live on. You don't need food; you don't need water. But of all the bizarre diets to lose weight by that we've looked at here, I'd call this one the safest. It's pretty obvious that it wouldn't appeal to anyone. Or would it?