At different times, people sought thinness in very unusual ways. Geniusbeauty.com will tell you about the strangest ones. Do not try to repeat them!
Alcohol diet
One of the first to have turned to controversial methods of losing weight was King of England William the Conqueror. He ruled in the 11th century, which was not the most prosperous time, like all of the Middle Ages.
Literally, there was no time to gain weight, and there were few obese people. People were more concerned not to starve to death rather than to lose extra pounds. On the contrary, being overweight was considered a sign of wealth and power. This is human nature: what most people lack always becomes a feature of the elite.
William was an extremely powerful and majestic monarch. According to a legend, he decided to lose weight when the horses ceased to carry the ruler. Then the king courageously refused food, completely replacing it with beer and wine. It is unknown to historians how many kilograms the monarch lost, since the inventor of the alcohol diet died soon afterwards, having fallen from his horse.
Byron’s vinegar diet
Lord Byron was so eager to look young and elegant that he constantly kept to strange diets. In the pursuit of “noble pallor,” he soaked the products in vinegar and simply drank acid, diluting it with water. Byron died at the age of 36. The autopsy revealed that the internal organs of the poet were much older than his biological age.
A chewing diet
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the world was shocked by the diet of Horace Fletcher. According to the author, any food should be chewed at least 32 times. Then you should throw your head back so that the contents falls down the throat. If the trick failed to work, it was considered as a signal for the person to spit the food out. It did not matter what you ate – semolina or a steak – you should chew it anyway! The idea brought millions to the author, and Fletcher himself was dubbed as the “The Great Masticator.”
Explosive diet
In the 1930s, American doctors began to note cases of rapid weight loss among workers in warehouses where explosives and insect chemicals were stored. Later, it turned out that all the products were based on dinitrophenol, a substance that enhances metabolism and burns fat reserves. Competent advertising resulted in drugs with dinitrophenol being sold in different countries. Cases with loss of vision and deaths made people question the safety of the technique.
HCG – diet
In the 1950s, Dr. Simeons from the UK suggested eating a 500-calorie diet and getting daily injections of the HCG hormone (“pregnancy hormone”). It is needless to say that hormonal intervention in the body never brought any good. The people losing weight according to Simeons’ system turned to doctors with Thrombosis, headaches and depression.
Helminth diet
Parasite-containing pills were at the height of fashion in the USA in the 1950s. The popularity of the helminth diet was promoted by the example of the famous singer Maria Callas. During 16 months, the woman lost 35 kilograms. In other countries, tapeworm pills appeared much later under the name of “Thai pills.” There were 2 capsules in the blister. One with a parasite larva, the other with a shock dose of an anthelmintic drug.
Nicotine diet
The advertising campaign of the first half of the 20th century brought the result that the mankind is still fighting. The Lucky Strike company’s slogan “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet” stuck in the minds of consumers. Despite the obvious harm, teenage girls, models, ballerinas deliberately started to smoke, and nothing could undermine the argument “cigarettes help maintain my weight”.
Sleepy diet
While sleeping, you do not eat. This simple thought penetrated the minds of Americans in the 1970s. The most famous follower of the “diet” was Elvis Presley.
However, the “diet” was based on powerful sleeping pills rather than physiological rhythms. Under the influence of these drugs, those “losing weight” could spend a few days in bed. Or they might not wake up at all.
“Horns and hooves” diet
In the late 1970s, Dr. Robert Lynn came up with a miracle drink that was supposed to discourage appetite. We must admit that the drug coped with the task to its fullest.
The doctor cooked jelly based on skins, bones, hooves and tendons of cattle. The brew was supposed to be used instead of the main meals. And people really lost weight. However, there was nothing surprising. A glass of Proline contained less than 400 calories.
Hallelujah Diet
In the 1990s, the American priest George Malkmus and his wife created a nutrition system designed to become the “direct road to God for health and well-being.” The diet got its name in honor of the Hallelujah Acres family farm, on which the “pious” products were grown.
The system was a low-calorie vegetarian diet consisting of cereals and vegetables. As conceived by the authors, it was these foods that were once eaten in paradise by Adam and Eve. However, the priest did not specify the apple variety.
Well, in comparison with the other methods listed above, this method is perhaps the most harmless.
