Crazy Celebrity Diets

Now I’m not suggesting that I haven’t tried one of these and even now as I’m doing the research, I’m curious about some of these… (oh, the dreaded word!) diets. Anyone who has known me for a good amount of time knows that, as a total foodie, I’m opposed to the concept of dieting. But here I am, talking about this. When I started writing my blog, I promised that I won’t be self-obsessed but I also told myself that I will write about things I know (Because well, it’s hard to write about things you don’t. Can you imagine what a blogpost about weightlifting by me will be like? So urm,  you like urm, lift stuff…)

So what do I know about crazy diets? Well, when I moved away from home 2 years ago, I had a moment of realisation (well, several) that I was on my way to becoming obese. Living in a different country, for the first time away from my mother’d delicious home-cooked meals, I had many choices that I could make: ready made sodium-packed preservatives-filled junk that tastes pretty good or tasteless bland food served in the cafeteria. Guess what option I chose? Neither. I went for the option of starving myself. And you know what? It worked. It also had some side effects of hair-loss and fainting spells (anywhere and anytime, and I mean, anywhere and anytime). This had a culminating effect of me losing 25% of my original body weight in about 3 months, 20kg.

I also had another moment of realisation that as easy as it was to stop eating (think about the time you save on cooking!), this is not the way to live. Food is too amazing to give up.

Crazy Celebrity Fad Diets

Acai Berries

The world hangs on to Oprah’s every word and when she once attributed her weight-loss (again!) to acai berries’ antioxidant properties with Dr Oz on her show, she got sued! (Well, what else do Americans know how to do? If my problems aren’t solved by you, you are wrong and I should get some money out of it!) Bottom line: It’s just a berry. Don’t depend on it.

Lemon Aid

A really scary, terrifying and dangerous diet: Beyonce reportedly dropped 20lb in 2 weeks by consuming nothing but homemade lemonade, maple syrup, water and cayenne pepper. I can’t imagine not consuming any solid foods for so long. Probably a good way to lose weight before an important event but be prepared to gain it all back!

Raw Foods Diet

When I first heard this one, I thought what’s wrong with raw vegetables and fruits? The enzymes and nutrients that are usually lost by cooking will be absorbed by the body and that is true (with some exceptions!) Demi Moore popularised this diet but probably took it a step too far by also adding raw meat. This can be connected to nausea, kidney and liver problems and even eye infections! Disgusting.

Facial Analysis Diet

Kate Winslet swears that this is how she lost her baby weight. A facial analyst read her skin, hair and eye texture (whatever that is) and recommended a special diet. Seriously? How can people fall for this stuff?

Baby Food Diet

Yes, they are small, cute and come in small portions and snackable sizes but they are for babies. Which we are not. And neither is Reese Witherspoon. You can’t maintain a healthy lifestyle with just 600 calories a day.

Cabbage Soup Diet

All you allowed is as much cabbage soup as you like… Poor Sarah Michelle Gellar. Not even people who like onions, tomatoes and cabbage can sustain this. Apparently it’s a quick weightloss technique and you lose weight in less than a week. But you put it all back on. And more.

Sundowner Diet

You know, I’m not convinced about this one…sounds like the old-wives tale about not eating after 6pm. No evidence that high-calorie foods get stored up as fat in the evening. What we can say is you shouldn’t go to bed right after dinner so I guess by not eating after sundown, there’s no chance of that ever happening?

Grapefruit Diet

Grapefruits have fat-burning properties and this diet requires you eat half before each meal. Probably to fill you up on all the water in the fruit! Each meal is also extremely tiny (about 250calories), adding to a grand total of 800 calories a day. That is called starvation, Kylie Minogue.

The Bird Diet

No, you don’t eat birds but you eat LIKE a bird. Victoria Beckham follows it and boy, is she thin but listen to this: It’s a diet of soya beans, strawberries, lettuce and 2 pints of algae and seaweed shake everyday. Not very posh at all, I must say.

I could compare that to malnourished Ethiopian childrens' pictures in NatGeo!

7 Day Colour Diet

Christina Aguilera discriminates against her food. This diet follows a colour/texture pattern where groups are made of kinds of food, one type per day per week. Sounds like a 6 year old child, or OCD.

Cookie Diet

Who thought up this one? Sesame Street? Apparently, you eat 2 healthy meals a day and replace one meal with 2 cookies, consuming a total of less than 800 calories a day (What kind of cookies are these? If each one is not 150 calories, then it’s not a real cookie…) Kim Kardashian has tried this diet…she’s fit but her ass is still huge.

Ice cube diet

Renee Zellwegger seems to ride the weight roller coaster and one of her craziest ones was this. She ate low carb meals and snacked on ice cubes through the day. What’s wrong with drinking water? Too normal for you?

Not exactly celebrities but crazy enough to be on the list!

The Drinking Man’s Diet

In 1964, Robert Cameron published a book with this diet which quickly became a best seller. The diet advises a diet that consists of gin and vodka (low carb beverages). Inspired by England’s William the Conqueror in 1087 who grew too large to ride his horse started a diet where he substituted food for alcohol in a desperate attempt to lose weight. Apparently this worked since he got on the horse again (but eventually died from falling off of it)! I think it’s safe to say that anything beyond the odd glass of wine should not be on the everyday menu…

Chew, chew, chew…SPIT!

In the early 1900s, art dealer Horace Fletcher discovered a new weight loss technique where you were allowed to chew your food – 32 times, one for each tooth – but then would proceed to spit it out. His theory was that by only chewing your food in this fashion, your body would absorb all the necessary nutrients and you would be able to enjoy the taste of food without any risk of weight gain. Of course, we now know that the body doesn’t absorb nearly enough food or nutrients through chewing (mainly the lack of fibre). Yes, you can lose weight, but generally due to malnourishment.

The Tapeworm Diet

What a wonderful diet where you can eat all you want but remain thin! All you have to do is swallow a worm-laced pill which will then feed itself on your food (inside you!) Besides the ewww factor, there’s a huge danger the worm can lay eggs inside nervous tissue (although how it can fertilise them, I’m not sure…I’m no entomologist but usually you need two to tango or else it’s mitosis.) These eggs can then cause seizures, dementia and meningitis…There are still several internet sites that allow you to purchase these illegally and how to infect yourself with a tapeworm. Eww. Just. Eww.

Just to make it extra-gross :)

P.S. Sorry about some of the gross-ness...Here's a cutesy video to make up for it!

What Disney has taught me about Life

I’m not going to say anything against Disney, I mean I grew up with it. I watched Cinderella every day of 1^st Grade (ask my mother, I really did!)

Sorry I lied, this is a Disney bashing post. I love the Disney-Pixar movies and watch every single one of them, sing along to their songs, hope that one day my Prince Charming will kiss me awake from my deep slumber with a little help from my fairy Godmother. But…the movies are filled with racial connotations, distorted portrayal of other cultures and stereotypical gender roles that typecast a man as strong and a woman as a weak and dependent on men. So....

What Disney has taught me about Life

A woman’s role in life is to be a housewife: 

• When Snow White is banished from her kingdom, she runs into the forest and cries and is completely helpless. Then she finds a dirty and disgusting house which she proceeds to clean from top to bottom, because that is, of course, the only role a woman can play. She meets the 7 dwarfs who continue to let her stay because they need a ‘mother’ (Who knows what other role she might have actually played in that house but due to adult content, I shall stick with their version of the story.) who will 'clean up' after them. She should have started a cleaning business, made great profits out of dirty dwarfs who work in mines and upstaged the evil Queen!

Who's next? ;)

A woman’s life does not begin until a man comes along: 

• Snow White did not wake from her poisoned-apple coma until her Prince kissed her. Sleeping Beauty was awoken with a kiss (and God knows what else!). None of these women could do anything to enhance their own life except be pretty and wait for a man to come and save them from their various miseries.
• Ariel was one of the worst: She abandons her voice and family for legs so she can be with the one she loves. Of course, Disney movies have to have happy endings so she regains her voice (one nice part: her family is supportive) but she still still leaves them behind all for a life with a man she barely knew. 

If you wait around long enough, the universe will hand things to you: 

• Now I’m not disagreeing that Cinderella’s life was a major buzzkill, but she just sat around scrubbing floors and waiting on her family miserably wishing to go to the ball. And would you believe it? Her fairy godmother saved the day. Can you see why most people are perfectly happy sitting on their bottoms waiting for something good to happen? Bippity-boppity-boo! (Read: Unemployment benefits! Edit: Sorry, this makes me sound really mean towards unemployed people and in today's economy, it's not these peoples' faults! Sorry...I was referring to the few lazy people who sit around reaping other people's hard earned money for their own benefits!)

A woman can change an abusive man: 

• While the fairytale was something quite different, the movie, Beauty and the Beast portrayed the Beast to be a cruel and downright frightening person, who although never physically hurt Belle, dealt with the insinuation that he might very well. Belle, with her loving and kind nature, changed him into a sweet prince, thus saying that a woman can change an abusive man. What a lesson for a girl to learn! If this were to happen in real life, Belle would be a battered woman.
• Side note: This is only the Disney version of the story. The original fairytale (from France) and it showed the Beast to be only frightening to look at but actually a kind and gentle soul. The message obviously was not to judge a book by its cover.

Racial bias:

• Jafar, the villain in Aladdin, has a typical Arabic look about him while Aladdin, the hero, looks like an American boy and even asks people to call him Al for short. (The movie was conceived in 1991 during the Gulf War, a conflict between Iraq and 34 countries in the UN when the American troops were sent to Kuwait to restore order. Make the connections yourself!)

• The Lion King, which is set in Africa, has the heroes (Simba and Mufasa) being voiced by actors speaking American English while the hyenas (villainous minions) speak non-standard English.

• Sebastian, the fun-loving Jamaican crab in The Little Mermaid, sings Under the Sea where:

Up on the shore, they work all day. Out in the sun they slave away. While we devotin', full time to floatin' Under the sea!

If you're still not convinced, look out: 1:56 for the Duke of Soul and 2:01 for the Blackfish!

 All villains are fat, ugly or old: 

• Jafar in Aladdin. Ursula in The Little Mermaid. Governor Ratcliffe in Pocahontas.

 

The ugly guy never gets the girl: 

• Poor Quasimodo (not only did he look deformed, he was named Quasimodo) in The Hunchback of Notre Dame: the moment he laid eyes on Esmerelda, he fell for her. He saved her from being burnt at the stake for spurning Frollo’s love. They become great friends and end up falling in love…No. Esmerelda falls in love with another guy, Captain Phoebus, who is the epitome of French handsome-ness. Sorry Quasi, you’re sweet and all but can’t mess with the gene pool.

Really? You thought you could compare to Blondie down there?

Order of approval: Captain Phoebus, The goat and Quasimodo

Me: Marshall, permission to say lawyered. 
Marshall: Granted. 
Me: LAWYERED!

If you read blogs and watch other peoples’ thoughts frequently, then you will realise that this is not a new idea but I promise that these thoughts are mine, even if influenced by others! Some evidence was googled because I couldn’t remember the details! J

Thanks for reading and hope you learnt something. PROMISE I actually do love all these movies but there’s something about thinking about them in realistic situations that makes you rethink all the times you imagined what life would be like as a child.

Pet Peeves..& Don't you dare burst my bubble!

Some things just annoy me to no end. They drive me up the wall. That really steams me. That really burns me up. I mean, I’m filled with a white hot rage!

Sorry, didn’t mean to go overboard but the last few lines are said in How I Met Your Mother (S04E04) by Barney Stinson.

List of Pet Peeves (Don’t judge me that this is my longest list so far…My excuse is that I’m getting better at this)

1.  People who throw good food away: There are 925million starving people in the world and you can throw good food away? There is no reason that can make me change my mind on this one. Food can be frozen, given to someone else (even a cat) but definitely not in the trash.
2. People, who no matter what, relate to something you have done and try to one-up you
3. Ignorant people
4. Grammatical Errors: Yes, I’m a grammar nazi. Applies to both writing and speaking.
5. Cooking for a picky eater: You know the type: they don’t eat mushrooms, don’t eat chicken, don’t eat anything with dairy in it. My guideline: TWO dietary requirements max/person.
6. Someone standing over my shoulder while I’m cooking or writing (or basically doing anything that requires concentration)
7. People who take too long in a long line: I can’t understand people who stand in line chatting about something and when they get to the front, they start deciding what to order! The chat couldn't wait till after you decided?
8. People who don’t look at you when you’re having a conversation



Just to illustrate the barbaric behaviour that this is!

9. People who drink directly out of the milk or juice carton/bottle
10. People who use their own saliva-soaked spoon to scoop food from a communal plate
11. People who sit next to you in public transport when there are other seats available
12. People who don’t cover their mouth while coughing or sneezing
13. Writing in CAPS-LOCK ALL THE TIME: YES, BECAUSE I SPEAK LIKE THIS, LIKE I’M ALWAYS ANGRY AND SHOUTING EVEN WHEN I’M SAYING, “I’M SO SORRY TO HEAR YOUR FRIEND HAS CANCER!”
14. When you really want a picture taken, the photographer takes 2-3 shots but it still comes out out-of-focus or off-centre!
15. When someone leaves their phone number at the end of a long message and they say it so fast you can't understand it and have to listen multiple times to figure it out 

P.S. Just a sign that babies are just the cutest things on the planets. Just too adorable!