Happy Friday, everyone! Today I thought it might be fun to look at some diet ideas that:

• sound like they should work, but don’t in real life;
• sound like they SHOULDN’T work, but actually HAVE, in real life; and
• silly ideas that no one I know has tried, but sound like fun.

Ready? Let’s strut some stuff!!

1. This Should Work. Why Doesn’t It Work? When I was a kid, a friend of my parents — let’s call her “Mrs. Bea Goode” — a school psychologist or something, suggested I try a “simply marvelous!” behavior modification trick she’d picked up somewhere (probably on TV): surround yourself with a whole bunch (“oodles and oodles!”) of all the foods you simply LOVE to snack on — more than you think you’ll ever actually need — and keep them right out in the open, where you can get them any time you want. According to Mrs. Goode, the reason we eat too much is because, way down deep inside our little caveman brains, we’re terrified of being deprived. Once our brain realizes there’s MORE than enough food around, we’ll relax, and not eat so much. And cavemen had it goin’ on, right?
   
   Well, after a week of scarfing down every last Taco Flavored Dorito and Li’l Debbie Snack Cake my mom had brought home, we decided there was probably a flaw in that idea somewhere, namely that having enough to keep MY little caveman brain satisfied might require taking a second mortgage on the house. So it didn’t last long. But boy howdy, was that a fun week for me!

2. The Tapeworm Diet. Yeah, people actually did this, and apparently still do it today, the sillies! You swallowed the tapeworm (ugh), which took up residence in your tum-tum and ate all the food you sent down.
   
   Moe and Curly did a routine about it in “Punch Drunk” (1934):

   Turns out tapeworms aren’t really that good for your overall health. Who’da thunk it?
   

3. The Twinkie Diet. This is the one that SOUNDS like it should kill you, sorta like the Cigarette Diet.
   

   but it actually DID result in weight loss for a guy named Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University!
   

   According to aworkoutroutine, Professor Haub

   …went from eating 2600 calories per day (his estimated maintenance level) to eating about 1800 calories per day instead. He just so happened to get the majority of those 1800 daily calories from the most junky foods you can think of.

   and those junky foods consisted of

   …Twinkies, Little Debbie cakes, Doritos, [hey, wonder if he knew Mrs. Bea Goode?], Oreos, sugary cereals like Corn Pops and other equally crappy foods that are all highly processed, lacking in nutritional value, loaded with sugar and “bad” carbs, high in “bad” fat, contain trans fat, and possess other similar traits that are common among typical “junk food.”

   And he lost

   …27lbs in 2 months and reduced his body fat percentage from 33.4% to 24.9%.

   Why? Simple – because he ate fewer calories than he burned. That’s how you lose weight. That’s how I’m losing weight.

   Now, nutrition counts, too, so no one (including Mark Haub) is recommending this is a regular way of eating.
   
   He did it just to prove a point: calories DO count!

4. The NBC Diet. Now, this one (and #5) are diets my husband and I came up with, in one of those conversations that just gets sillier and sillier till one of you gets tired and wanders into the kitchen for a snack. But hey — it SOUNDS good! And not too much different, in theory, from Mark Haub’s diet. Here it is (drum roll please!):

   The NBC Diet – Nothin’ But Cheese!
   
   Mmm, I could do that, couldn’t you?

5. After You! And of course, there’s the ever-popular “After You” diet, for couples. First one in the house after getting home from work, church, etc. has to cook supper.
   
   “After you!”
   “No, YOU get out first!
   “No, YOU!”
   “Hello, police? Our neighbors have been sitting in their car for three days!”

That’s your Friday Five! Have a great weekend! I’ll be back bright and early on Monday, struttin’  my Weekly Weigh-in – let’s see if a weekend of “NBC” results in a gain or a loss!