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Digging into scary after-Christmas diets

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FYI: Please do not try the following fad diets as they can be hazardous to your ho-ho-ho health. However, laughing along with my attempt at humor may burn a few calories.

If a certain diet worked, everybody everywhere would know about it. Food fads travel around the planet and back. Weight loss scams come and go. You lose money and motivation, but not pounds. Or if you initially lose a few pounds, you gain them back and more. Greedy companies prey on people with phony promises, bogus beliefs, false and faulty research. They recruit fanatic followers. Where’s the science, folks? The fitness industry needs to divorce the fad diet business. We have to be aware of health hype and question dieting madness.

The following funky diets are a taste of my own amusing rederick. So, don’t try them at home.

Air Diet. You are guaranteed to lose weight. And eventually your life.

Snow Diet. You stay hydrated, but hungry. Be on the lookout for yellowish reindeer pee in the white snow.

Leftover Wrapping Paper Diet. Low in calories. Eating ribbon and bows is not allowed.

Dead Christmas Tree Diet. You eat your used tree instead of abandoning it on the curb for garbage pick-up. High in fiber, so have extra toilet tissue around.

Walnut Soup Diet. Be on alert for angry squirrels.

Island Diet. You munch on tropical plants and slurp banana juice. May cause excessive belching.

The West Coast Sand Diet. You lie on the beach and drink Margaritas. I wouldn’t advise it - too harsh on the liver. And too salty.

The East Coast Rock Diet. You throw rocks into the ocean and eat only what you hit.

The North American Wings Diet. You only eat animals that fly. The exception is a flying squirrel. No products from the earth’s soil allowed.

The Metabolism Mania Diet. You wrap up in a tarp and jog for forty days, while sucking on ginseng root. Caution is advised on windy days. Naked joggers may be arrested for indecent exposure.

The Bacon, Bacon, and More Bacon Diet. Yes, all you consume is bacon. A bunch of bacon for breakfast. A bag of bacon for lunch. A box of bacon for dinner. It’s a bacon bonanza! Prepare to feel bamboozled and bummed.

“Diet scams rank No. 1 among health care frauds reported to the Federal Trade Commission, with on-the-make marketers deploying a variety of tricks to get people to purchase their wares. Some create websites that look like those of legitimate magazines and news organizations and fill them with phony articles claiming that celebrities have achieved amazing results from their products. The FTC recently obtained a $500,000 settlement from affiliate marketers in Florida who the agency said sent emails from hacked accounts to trick potential customers into thinking a friend or family member was urging them to try some weight-loss miracle pill,” according to a 2018 article on the AARP website.

“If diets worked, we’d all be thin by now. Instead, we have enlisted hundreds of millions of people into a war we can’t win,” Neuroscientist Sandra Aamodt writes in her 2016 book, Why Diets Make Us Fat: The Unintended Consequences of Our Obsession With Weight Loss.

How interesting—the word ‘die’ is found in the word ‘diet.’ Step away from fad-sad-rad-bad diets.

By Melissa Martin
Guest Columnist

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