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Cartridge Save do not recommend any of the following diets…

Did you put on a couple of extra pounds over the Christmas period? When you returned to the office, did your co-workers complain about the still-lingering smell of mince pies?

Did you decide one of your New Year’s resolutions was to go on a diet?

Well fear not my porky friend. I have hand-picked 9 of the most ludicrous diets from history for you to choose from…

1. The Tapeworm Diet

>Just as you might hire a maid (or commandeer your children) to do the housework, why not get a tapeworm to do your dieting work? You eat everything you want, and then just let Old Tapey (you can name yours whatever you like) eat it away once it’s inside you.

All you need to do is get your hands on a tape worm and wash him down with a nice Devonshire cream tea. Crazy as this sounds Edwardians were offered weight loss pills containing ‘live’ tape worms.

2. The HGC Diet

HGC, you’ll be delighted to discover, is a hormone found in female urine (Lady Wee to give its medical name). And you’ll be further delighted to discover that if injected, HGC is claimed to suppress appetite and thus help you diet.

All you need now is to find a willing HGC supplier and away you go (or lucky ladies, you could supply your own). Don’t let the fact that this has never been medically proven to be true put you off.

3. The Colour Diet

If you find it a struggle to remember which foods you need to be eating on your diet, the Colour Diet is perfect for you. All you need to do is make sure that each day, the food you eat is all the same colour. Each day you rotate to a different colour.

And you’ll be in good company too. This diet was a favourite of (admittedly skinny) pop warbler Christina Aguilera. And she’s totally sane.

4. The Cookie Diet

Yep, this is truly a diet where you can eat cookies everyday and lose weight. Brilliant. Or perhaps not so brilliant… The diet requires you to eat eight special cookies everyday, and then you’re allowed one normal meal.

Now, call me a sceptic, but if you’re only allowed to eat one full meal and eight ‘special’ cookies, I think any weight loss will be attributed to the total lack of overall food you’re eating, and nothing to do with the over-priced special cookies.

5. The Sleeping Diet

Some bright spark once made the connection that when you’re asleep, you don’t eat. They then theorised that if you simply slept longer, you would eat less and lose weight.

And thus the sleeping diet was born.

Elvis was apparently a fan. And he was in such fine shape that he died through the simple efforts of using the lavatory. Make your own conclusions on it’s effectiveness.

6. The Morning Banana Diet

Eat a banana for breakfast and then eat anything else you want for the rest of the day and lose weight. It’s apparently as simple as that. The idea is that the banana will increase your metabolism, enabling your body to process any of the muck you decide to throw down your greedy throat afterwards.

However, like Mogwais, this diet comes with a warning. Don’t eat after 8pm or you’ll turn into a Gremlin (a fat one I presume).

This one was a big craze in Japan. If you’re the type of person who is impressed by crazes from Japan, give it a go.

7. The Shredded Newspaper Diet

With it’s variation; the Cotton Wool Diet, this is a diet where you simply eat newspaper or cotton wool so you feel full and have no space left for lasagna and Hob Nobs (and don’t worry, you’re allowed to soak it in water if you’re worried it might be a bit dry).

This is a diet beloved of catwalk models, and to be fair, they’re normally pretty boney, so there must be something in it then.

8. The Part Time Diet

You read the name of this diet and think it sounds great. You know you want to diet, but a full time diet seems like too much work. So, why not just take the part time diet instead and relax!

Well, this is where I have to break the bad news. This should actually be called Part Time Eating because that’s what it really entails. You’re only allowed to eat every other day. Granted they say you can go to town on what you do eat, but then the next day you’re going to be on hunger strike. Not a even single Curly Wurly is permitted.

9. The Cave Man Diet

This diet works on the theory that physically, our bodies haven’t evolved much since around 10,000 years ago, it’s just our lifestyles that have.

We are no-longer hunting for long periods on an empty stomach, foraging on what natural scraps we find until our next kill. Rather we’re going down to the 24-hour garage in our slippers for microwave pizza and a grab bag of Minstrels.

To follow this diet you’re not allowed to eat anything that wasn’t available to our cave man ancestors. That means no cultivated crops, no foreign imports and no Pop Tarts.

Badger Dave’s Article Round Up

At this point I think I’m now ready to share with you the break-through diet of the modern age. I have studied the theories that have gone before, distilled their secrets and collated their weight loss magic into one diet to rule them all.  I call it…

The Badger Dave Diet

Eat fresh food. Eat smaller portions. Do some exercise.

It’s not rocket science people.

Happy New Year.

If you’ve heard of a ludicrous diet, or believe something crazy-sounding actually works, leave it as a comment below…

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