It's day two of my crash diet and I'm hungry.
Which makes sense, considering I've only eaten a cup of peas today and half a bowl of Sacred Heart Soup. And consumed more than a litre of water. I actually got the toaster out this morning out of habit. Clearly I miss my raisin toast and one percent milk.
People seem to see crash diets as a God-send, a miracle working deity that removes all excess weight in a matter of a week. I think we've all seen three-day cleanses and week-long fat blasts advertised, promising to make you drop a dress size in no time. It's like running your picture through the Skinny Me program, except the results are real and less pixelated.
This desire to be instantly thin comes from (in my totally expert, no-medical-knowledge-at-all opinion) our societal need for immediacy. We want it now, and those who don't feel they have the time to exercise regularly (me) and whose moms are constantly baking (me) just want results with minimal effort. So what if I'm dizzy while I try to type this column? I'm going to lose 10 pounds in the next six days!
But I figured I'd better research this business and find out what's up.
Typing "How successful are crash diets?" into Google brought up a lot of hits. I decided to read only the top three results because, you know, they must be right if they're first.
Result one: The title of the article is "The Best Crash Diet for a Healthy You." Huh. That seems like an oxymoron. Anyway, the site explained that eating cabbage soup is the best way to go if you want to lose those pounds fast, and recommends that one do some yoga to look radiant and thinner.
Well, alright. I think I have a yoga DVD at home and cabbage soup is basically what I'm eating. So that's one point for my crash diet.
Result two: Cracked.com presents the six most insane crash diets of all time. The sixth one is consuming only alcohol, which I swear I saw on a mockumentary on YouTube and agree that it's likely not healthy. Next is vomiting, which apparently started in Rome. Neat. Then we have eating only graham crackers, then chewing your food 80 times until it reached liquid form and, my personal favourite, consuming tapeworms so they can eat your food for you. The number one most insane diet is "The sleeping beauty diet," which Cracked describes as voluntarily being sedated for weeks in order to lose weight. Finishing the article, I couldn't really find a moral, exactly, other than that people are crazy. And that soup seems a whole lot better than tapeworms.
So, another point for the soup diet.
Result three: Titled "Four Keys That Can Make Crash Dieting Work," this article explains that crash diets are stupid and largely ineffective, but goes on to explain how to make them awesome. Mentally convince yourself you like being hungry and then get pumped up about all your willpower. Go from crash dieting to real, life-style change dieting. Finally, punish yourself with more soup in the future should you find yourself binging on chocolate covered peanuts.
This one was a bit harder to decipher, but as I understand it, crash diets can be good if you use them to get healthier in the long run.
So that's another point for my crash diet, making the total three points for, and zero points against.
And Google doesn't lie, so all this must be true. I'm feeling pretty good about this diet now.
Plus, oh my God, I've lost three pounds since Monday!
