To quote the most darling DeLarla...

"... tons of us already tried Nutrisystem and many other expensive and useless diets. Save your money and be patient. Just my opinion."

That got me thinking of all the things I have tried over the years. I was wondering if anyone can beat me for crazy weight loss schemes?

Here are my 2 most over-the-top:

1) Having my jaws wired for 2 months. (Actually, they just wire your teeth shut. Worked pretty well, only I started to go crazy not being able to brush my teeth... oh, and the "mumbling" got to be a bit much!)

2) Going to the Shick Center (now defunct). Oh my...I paid a fortune for the whole treatment, but couldn't take the torture after 3 weeks. And I DO mean torture. They "desensitize" you to your "problem" foods. Here's what they did to get me over french fries... After having me take a handfull and SQUEEEEZE the grease out of them they sat me in front of a full-length mirror, hooked me to electrodes and had me watch myself while I stuffed handfulls of fries in my mouth chewing WHILE being SHOCKED, having fish emulsion sprayed in my face and being yelled at by the "counselor."

Okay--let's see if anyone can top that for self-abuse?

(BTW it was years before I could enjoy a fry again.)

Oh, my, Kare. That's got to be the top. Opti-fast and hypnosis were the only "weird" things I tried. What I can't understand is why we ever though Opti-fast would work long-term. Hypnosis was hopeless from the start.

(BTW it was years before I could enjoy a fry again.)

So, I guess it worked. LOLOL ... that was hilarious!!! I definitely cannot beat that one.

I can't beat that Kare. I have been on soooo many fad diets that didn't work. One time I went on one where the first day you only eat hot dogs, 1 for breakfast 2 for lunch and then 3 for dinner. same on 2nd day but you eat hard boiled eggs, 3rd day you eat only bananas. I remember that I did lose weight but It came back ++++. God I hate diets!!

LOVE MY BAND BUDDY!!!!

OMG! I've never done anything like that. I've just done Weight Watchers a gazillion times.

I actually have lost a lot of weight once, about 15kg which was my surplus at the time. It took about a year to lose it, I just decided I wasnt going to diet anymore and that I was just going to eat sensibly. It worked, although it was slow. I was pretty active back in those days walking to work and the like. I kept that weight off and maintained about 145lb at 5ft 10 for a good 6 years till I started having babies. I even maintained it aftr my first baby but my second pregnancy I gained a heap of weight and never lost it and I found the lifetstyle change with 2 babies in 2 years was enough to gradually start the gaining.

Electrical shock treatment. But I won't go into details since there's already a thread like this started where I poured my guts out.

A diet where you eat only hot dogs! Oh man, I almost choked on a blueberry when I read that!

You know what's the craziest thing about when I went to Shick? At the time I was in my twenties in college and a whopping 145 pounds! Yes, my disgustingly fat body to myself at 23 is my fantasy goal weight now! I really looked fine--I just didn't look great in a bikini. Thank God I have no desire to wear a bikini these days!

I definitely can't be that one, Kare. How awful :/

While I've done about every fad diet you can imagine, the stupidest wl scheme for me was being bulimic for a few years. Like you, I was actually quite a good size back then, just couldn't see it when I looked in the mirror. I'm so glad that whole part of my life is now over...

Hi ,

I must admit I can't top the shick center Kara, but close, I was on a diet where they inject you with pregnant womens urine everyday in addition to a 600 calorie diet, I lost weight fast but felt so weak after a month I had to stop.

I cant beat Kares either, but I also gave the bulimia a try, also tried starving myself and the speed pills...*sigh* How much crap we put our bodies through.

Icapec syrup after meals. Not proud of it, but did it all through high school. Eventually I didn't even have to take it but just smell it. To this day, it will make me gag with the smell.

Kare isn't a real person. She's my alter ego. I just made up her screen name. KARE, you are the only person in the whole world that I've run into so far that remembers the Schick Center. Sure, they remember the Schick Smoking Centers, but you and I must have been the only two victims in the food department.

No matter how bad it sounds what Kare went through, it was 100 times worse. Kare, did you get a variety of counselors during your treatments? Some were kind, but I had this one big fat German woman named Hilda or Comrad or something who was just awful. She had me crying my eyes out, so I ran out of the room, puked, then got in my car and nearly crashed through heaving sobs and tears. Then some dude at a bus stop was opening up a Snicker's Bar and I puked on the side of the road. When I walked in the house I nearly fainted. It was really, really awful.

Fish emulsion. You just can't truly appreciate the beauty of fish emulsion unless you've been there. Oh, it was just awful.

the stupidest wl scheme for me was being bulimic for a few years.

Yup....me too. Only for me it was more like ten years. It was pretty bad, there were times I was so weak and my heart was beating so fast that I was sure I'd die in my bed overnight. It also eventually caused rampant paranoia and agoraphobia. My glands under my neck were swollen. The insides of my mouth were raw. It was pretty goddamn stupid in retrospect but it made so much sense then.

Then again....probably the most outrageous thing I've ever done in order to lose weight is to allow a surgeon to cut into a perfectly healthy body in order to attach a strip of silicone around my stomach. I mean, when you stop and think about it...it's pretty crazy. Thank God I appreciate crazy.

Does anyone remember the Cambridge diet? I blended my brains out & actually lost weight (never been that thin since--123 lbs- I still remember it 25 years later. I tried bulemia too, never really worked.

Other then the perscription appetite suppressant and Water pills, the only really weird diets I have done are

1) Duke university Rice diet, I still have rice issues. You get 3 cups of rice per day for 2 weeks, then you can have 3 cups of rice and 1 serving of fruit, 1 serving of veggies, 1 serving of chicken or fish, all steamed no butter or salt. I did this in my teens with my mom.

2) cabbage Soup diet, nothing more to say on that one.

3) Atkins, it worked for the 11 months I was on it, I lost 87 pounds, then I found out i was pregnant and I gained it all back and then some. The obgyn said that since my body was "accustomed" to having the extra weight for so long, I would gain more weight it was just a fact of life. I was showing when I was only 12 weeks pregnant. I couldn't touch my fingers together around my belly by 7 months. I was GINORMOUS!!! From month 5 until I gave birth all I heard was Is it twins? and when I told strangers that I had x amount of weeks to go they always asked ""Are you sure????" I lost some of the weight but I have my band to help me battle the rest. Thank God!!!~Mandy

Karen, YES I remember the cambridge diet. It made me sooooooo sick. I was in high school and everyone said I was pg. NOT!!! Terrible Terrible Terrible diet!!!!!!