What is the craziest diet you have ever done?

Did you learn anything (positive or negative) from that experience? What did you learn?

Do you ever have moments of old habits dying hard and "Wellllll... maybe just for TODAY... I'll just eat celery... just for one meal (or day or week or ____)"?

PS... sorry that totally and completely forgot about last Thursday's homework until Saturday or Sunday. Whoops!

I haven't done any real crazy ones, but I have tried Slimfast (couldn't stick with it for digestive reasons--'nuff said) and I went on a restricted-calorie (800 calories) diet back in 1973 with a roommate whose doctor put her on it. The sick thing is that, some days, I wasn't even eating as many as 800 calories. Yikes. No wonder my metabolism is so mucked up. I did lose 30-35 pounds in 4 months, but of course it didn't stay off because I could never live on that restrictive a diet.

Hmm...what did I learn...well, the Slimfast diet taught me early lessons about fiber that I hadn't yet learned from eating REAL food. The very low calorie diet taught me that you can lose weight without exercise (cuz I didn't know what exercise was in those days--then again, I was 19 years old, so I was probably a good bit more energetic just naturally).

As for the old habits dying hard, well yea, but not in that context. LOL Nah, I never do that "I'm only going to eat cabbage soup today" or drink water or eat grapefruit, etc. I left behind that wacky stuff many years ago.

I haven't done too many diets and the ones I did only lasted a week or two. I did the grapefruit diet but all you lose on that is water weight because of all the potassium(sp?).
I did Jenny Craig for a while (when it was brand new) and enjoyed the lifestyle meetings that were a part of it them (do they still do those?) but I have always been a picky eater and I didn't like most of the food, plus I still had to buy groceries to feed dd so the cost sort of ended it for me.

I also did Atkins (in the 70's when it was new) but there again I didn't like the approved foods.

I can't even count the number of times I did the Slimfast thing. Oh, sure, it worked every time, but as soon as those five or ten pounds were gone, I'd go right back to my old habits. And the weight came back. Imagine that!

I have occasionally done what I call "spa days," where I work out morning, noon, and evening and make a special effort to eat extremely healthy and low-cal meals. It's been much harder to fit those in since DS was born. And the "spa" never lasted beyond a single weekend.

The Atkins Diet...while it worked short term I gorged when I went back to eating everything in sight. I learned that I have to eat whatever I want (not however much I want) and that limiting any food is not realistic for me. It has to be a lifestyle change! Brilliant I know

I also did Diet Center and Jenny Craig...again, they worked, but when put back into the real world I couldn't maintain.

Maintenence has been the biggest thing for me this time. I don't want to screw up again. I am much more aware this time and am catching myself at the 5-10 pounds over instead of 50-90 pounds over! It has been a much different path for me this time which will be my LAST time!

I tried the raw food detox diet last winter. Can you imagine only raw foods during a cold Chicago winter. No yummy roasted veggies. Only raw carrots to snuggle up with by the fire. I was miserable.

From this experience and others I am learning that there are no "magic foods" that will bring me back to a healthy size.

On a positive, the diet did get me to try kale. And I love it!!!

What is the craziest diet you have ever done? My very first diet, I was 13 and my mother thought I was fat at 130 -- which I was, and she and my doc put me on a "grapefruit diet" made up by the clinic docs where I went. You ate a half of grapefruit every meal. And for meals you had 1 slice of dry toast and 1/2 head of lettuce and 1/2 grapefruit for lunch, and 1/2 lettuce, 1/2 grapefruit and 8 ounces of meat for dinner for 30 days. I lost 3 lbs. Ridiculous!

Did you learn anything (positive or negative) from that experience? What did you learn? I now hate grapefruit and will never eat it again, it make me gag. I learned that all things in moderation are good, and you have to vary and portion control foods for the best results.

Do you ever have moments of old habits dying hard and "Wellllll... maybe just for TODAY... I'll just eat celery... just for one meal (or day or week or ____)"? NEVER!

In the 90s, everyone was doing low-fat, and I got in on the craze, doing it in a particularly dumb way. I read "Stop the Insanity" and believed her premise that if you eat lowfat, you can eat as much bread and other fat-free stuff as you want. I gained a lot of weight eating that way, especially since my resolve would break down and of course I'd want high-fat stuff. Then I'd think as long as the percentage of fat was low, I could still be OK.

I learned that it's hard to feel totally satisfied if you eat a diet of carbs alone unless you eat huge volumes of food. And that eating huge volumes of food will make you fat.

I never really did a "diet".

The closest I ever did to a "diet" was to eat extremely low-fat for several years, then I became a vegetarian. However, I don't consider either of those extreme really.

Dawn

I was never really on diets. My first food plan/diet came when I went to my dietician about 5-6 years ago.

Up until then I was lingered 30-40 pounds overweight and just accepted it as my fate in life. I did try to cut down on food at times, but I really felt that I had little to no choice in my weight. I was not at all armed with correct/helpful information.

Now I sometimes get into wanting to cut calories too much--- thinking I can go down to 1,000 calories for a day in order to make up for the fact that i had a 2,000 calories day prior. It never works and always seems to back fire as I am starved by dinner and end up around 1,500. I hate being hungry. I have always needed very regular food.

I used to not know what proper portion sizes were. At all! And I did not know how much nutritional difference there was between an apple and a (too large) serving of chips. I did not distinguish between saugage on the grill and a learn grilled chicken breast. I used to judge a restaurant meal as "about right" rather than double the calories I needed. Stuff like that is what I have changed these past years.

The diet coke and salad diet.

I did this while in college. I would only have diet cokes for breakfast and lunch and then a salad for dinner. That's it.

On the weekends I would have beer at parties and be less restrictive.

I lost 40 pounds in a couple of months and end up with chronic bronchitis. That's also the year that I blew out my knee skiing, had kidney problems, etc.... I was in the university health center every week.

I ended up being at my lightest all time weight (20 lbs lighter than right now) but two dresses sizes bigger because I had zero lean muscle. It was by far the most unhealthy I've ever been (even when I was up past 215 lbs).

When I started eating normally I regained everything I lost plus some and that became the impetus for swearing off diets forever. One extreme to the other got me up to my highest weight three years later (where I stayed for YEARS).

What did I learn - starvation diets are horrible for your health and make no sense.
No, I'm never tempted to do that again!

The "Crap, It's Time to Be Fitted for Competition Suits" diet, heartily endorsed by my swim coach and followed by several other teammates:

Breakfast: 1 container of yogurt, 1 piece of fruit (so we always looked for the BIGGEST orange or apple...)
Lunch: Plate of plain pasta
Dinner: Salad greens with vegetables--no dressing, 1 coffee cup with ice milk (instead of ice cream)

And we'd eat like that for weeks (while we did hard-core aerobic workouts for 4-5 hours a day, 6 days a week, and weights for 1 hour every day, 5 days a week). WEEKS, I tell you! It's not that hard when the people you eat with twice a day are on the same diet. I think it's why I still hate to eat yogurt for breakfast and INSIST on SOME kind of dressing for my salads.

I learned that I can exist on next to nothing. I learned how to completely ignore the signs of not eating enough and how a "runner's high" could feel when you're already loopy from not eating enough. I also learned that unless I was a certain weight, people who I wanted to please were disappointed in me.

Oh, and I learned to binge! I didn't drink a bunch at our sorority parties, but I sure did eat as many chocolate-covered pretzels and chips as I could get away with!

I also learned that my weight is not directly tied with my ability to compete, to win, and to be found attractive. And I learned that I *hate* plain pasta

I have two weird diets I really remember.

1. Cabbage soup diet. The soup was lovely , but not after three consecutive meals.
2. Steak diet. Steak, greens, bananas and cheese. ONLY.

No, wait...there's more...

3. Some weird detox diet with grapefruit and unseasoned cooked meat (??) That lasted 3 days.
4. An amateur, women's-magazine version of the points diet (this was in 1983) with a totally ridiculous amount of allotted points. I lost 16 lbs over 8 weeks and was totally obsessed. Ick.

I just can't stand strictly regulated stuff like that. I go nuts and end up eating all my forbidden foods anyway. So I thought if losing weight and dieting is like that then %¤#&% it. I was so defensive and angry I stopped trying and ate everything in sight. For years.

This past year is the first time in years I've been able to work at any kind of weight loss. It's also the first time in years I've actually lost any weight.

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