Once the vogue of chubbiness as a sign of wealth and health waned, we human beings have been dieting! We are trying to lose fat – by any means possible! Buzzfeed begins with 1820 and travels to the present with weight loss scams and fads that are not only ineffective, but dangerous and – some of the worst have never gone away! With the exception of one, I’ll only hint at the details, so you must view the video to get the nitty gritty.
See what Lord Byron used to keep unsightly bulges at bay. Those tights were unforgiving, as was his breakfast!
In 1903 one might have been an advocate of the ‘chewing diet’ – still practiced by some today. There is no way to avoid losing weight with this one, but dinnertime conversation would be as scarce as a meal with modern day diners who are busy texting.
This one will grab you! In 1920, the Cigarette Diet kept hunger pangs at bay. Remember, the noxious weed was touted for ‘health’ for decades.
In the 1950’s (and before, and now for that matter) The Tapeworm Diet was an unbelievable option! More about this one later.
1954 HCG Diet
1990’s I missed this one, mercifully: The Baby Food diet.
In 2000 The Cotton Ball diet exploded, as they will when wet. Don’t try this one at home, kids. They will also cause intestinal blockage.
2010 The Twinkie Diet? ONLY Twinkies, all day long, as many as you wish. I presume you stuff Twinkies until you can’t bear the sight of them anymore.
2014: Here we are, celebrating the Monomeal A meal consisting of ONE ingredient only…A LOT of that ingredient.
Dr. Oz tries to convince Oprah that the Tapeworm Diet might be the easy way to a slim new figure. It doesn’t appear to be an easy sell, although when you ingest your diet buddy, he is generally small enough to fit into a capsule and swallow.
Tapeworm diets have captured the hopes of people seeking an easy way to lose ugly fat with a revolting, giant worm. The method was said to require little or no effort from the dieter, and has sickened and intrigued folks for hundreds if not thousands of years.
The story below and the video documentary follow a doctor in the U.K. who tests out the old dieting ‘trick’ of ingesting tapeworms. It should be noted that Dr. Mosley is a physician, who knows what he’s doing. He also didn’t lose any weight during the tapeworm trial. If weight is lost, it is likely to be from the nausea and diarrhea experienced from having a large voracious roommate in your digestive tract. When the Buzzfeed video says ‘you’ll never be alone,” they aren’t kidding!
Tapeworms can grow to 50 feet in length and live up to 20 years! They are in no way attractive or entertaining, although some have chosen to exit their host via a tear duct or play ‘will it or will it not’ exit through more mainstream bodily portals.
A word to the wise about parasite dieting which can prove to be fatal. Tapeworms are parasites that can be accidentally ingested by eating undercooked, infected beef or pork. They can grow to be 50 feet long and live for 20 years inside their host. Mosley said his wife, also a medical doctor, wasn’t thrilled with him becoming a human guinea pig. “But I told her not to worry—this particular tapeworm is relatively innocuous,” he told the BBC. Mosley consumed beef tapeworm, which is less dangerous than pork. It’s also not infectious between humans, so there was no risk of passing it on.
Some cases of infection are asymptomatic, but typical signs include nausea, diarrhea, bloating, and even, in severe cases, blindness, brain damage, and death. “That’s the tricky thing about tapeworms,” microbiologist Mary Pitcher, PhD, explained to Yahoo Shine. “They like to travel around the body, to the brain, for instance.” Mosley was under medical supervision; obviously, no one should try this experiment at home.
If you google Tapeworm Diet you will see packaging from the 1800’s and even the 1950’s for the revolting magic ingredient,Because of the health risk, tapeworms are banned for sale in the United Kingdom, the same as in the United States. That doesn’t mean you can’t buy them — or some other potentially dangerous substance being marketed to hopeful dieters as tapeworm — online. In August 2013, the Iowa Department of Health notified public health workers about a woman who had visited her doctor after becoming ill from eating a tapeworm pill she purchased on the Internet