resolutions, diets and stupid

New year resolutions

Since most new year resolutions are abandoned after about a week; I feel hesitant whether to make one or not. Resolutions give us a moment of hope as the new year begins, so that may have some value. 

It seems the number one resolution for most people is to lose weight. By now losing weight we may not feel very confident. As the years move along our weight tends to increase. The fitness industry and health industry both booming don't seem able to help. So what do we do? We turn to the craziness ideas where we might lose a few pounds but in time we only put the weight back on again. bugger!

If you don't mind here are a few suggestions or guidelines:

1. if it seems to be to good to be true, it probably isn’t true.
2. If a celebrity endorses it, avoid it like you would've avoided Ebola. If a celebrity endorses it, look for the snake oil. It may help you lose weight but you can guarantee it won't help your health.
3. If it cost you money to find out the secrets, a red flag should go up that this is a scam.

I hope to encourage you with the little bit of skepticism when it comes to diet and claims. My personal physician tells me that losing weight is going to take about 80% of work in diet. Whatever it takes we have to work at it and it will become part of our lifestyle.

Let's take a look at the crazy world of diets.

The McDonald's diet. No matter the clever ads, jingles, beautiful people eating a burger, like cigarettes we know this is a bad road. Here I refer to fast food in general.

Listen to the doctors. Many doctors come up with plans about diets. If their plans come up with a price tag, think twice. Hippocrates, us the father of medicine gave this advice to lose weight. Eight once a day, take no baths, sleep on a hard surface, eat more meat and protein; and my favorite, walk around naked as much as possible especially in winter. Now I think you would lose weight but then you might get pneumonia.

HCG diet & celebs. Recently I came across a brief reference to Kim Cardassian planning to eat the placenta when her baby was born. I readily admit to you I really don't know where these crazy ideas come from but in researching crazy diets I came across the HCG diet. People who practices this diet eat 500 cal a day and inject themselves with a hormone produced by the placenta of a pregnant woman. Nothing sounds right about this. 

Loopy idealists diets, The Freegan Diet. They combine a vegan diet of discarded food and food they can find for free. Basically eat what people throw away and forage in nature. So head to the dumpster and hope the food is fresh.

The models and writers diet. Lord Byron and Heidi Klum have a diet with a different twist. Drink vinegar or soak your food with it so that you lose your appetite. Lord Byron went from 194 lbs to 126 lbs. He got the look that he wanted in being pale and thin, he also died at 36 with many health problems. Heidi’s diet may not be as extreme could erode her stomach and esophagus.

Enlist help of a tapeworm. Tapeworms can grow 30 feet and they are capable of reproducing inside our bodies. People tried to this in the early 1900s and In 1950s. So we are about ready for another round of somebody trying this. When you lose the weight you want you can go through the treatment of destroying the tapeworms in your body. Just be aware of they do come out of your body one way or another. There is a long list I'm dangerous side effects including meningitis, epilepsy, and dementia. Plus a 30 foot pet.

Yes cigarettes can help you lose weight. That was the plan back in 1925 with Lucky Strikes. The ads included a beautiful thin girl smoking a cigarette and a fat girl eating. Cigarettes in the movies were a powerful advertisement. I believe people can still be duped with this stupidity.

Let's go to a Fletcher's party. In 1903 Horace Fletcher introduced a diet which help him lose 40 pounds. You chew your food hundred times a minute and what is left you spit out. Wouldn't that make a great dinner party. Writers Henry James, in Franz Kafka, and millionaire John D Rockefeller followed this diet. Besides gross it leads to constipation.

I think you get the idea, weird ideas may work; but they often cause us serious health problems. Just because a doctor, a celebrity, or new product comes along think about my guidelines and can I had another one:

(4) if it's stupid, it is

Keep walking