500 Calories a Day? No Way!
Today, I learned of one of the dumbest diets I’ve ever heard of. I don’t know if anyone’s written on it, but it was so shocking to me, I had to give my own take.
I was sitting outside of the dentist’s office, waiting for my brother to come out after his root canal. In front of me was a chiropractor’s office and on the door there was a sticker that said “Skinny Up sold here!” Did you wince at the name? I did. So, I did some research on my handy-dandy phone.
The HCG diet amounts to getting daily injections, or ingesting daily drops, of human chorionic gonadotropin (a hormone found in pregnant ladies) and eating just 500 calories a day. No exercise needed, apparently.
My first reaction? Of course you’re going to lose weight! You’re only eating 500 bloody calories a day! You’re starving!
The Skinny Up website mentions a Dr. Simeons a lot, who did his research in the ever-so-modern era of the 1950s. And it’s not like we’ve made any scientific or medical breakthroughs in the last 60 years or anything, so his research is totes legit, guys! And Dr. Simeons called it a cure, which is why after 50-60 years of his miracle cure there aren’t any more fat people today.
The end!
*pounds my head on the wall*
Yeah. If it were really a “cure” do you think there’d be any fatties? Because honestly? I don’t.
Not only that, but the website also does all of us poor fatties a favor in a few paragraphs titled “Injustice to the Obese.” And some of what it mentions is true. Fatties are accused of cheating on diets, greed, gluttony, lack of willpower, and sexual complexes. The paragraph goes on to say that when a fat person is hated on like this, they stop believing in doctors and the outcome is always the same, “a further gain in weight, resignation to an abominable fate and the resolution at least to live tolerably the short span allotted to them.”
O deity!
Yes. My body is abominable! Like that fatty fat fatass snowman!
My whole life is abominable! (Is it just me or is that the most melodramatic word in the English language?)
And because I’m fat and have given up on all things scientific and medical, I can only hope to live a mediocre life and die at… I dunno… 32. Because non-fat people never live a short life. Non-fat people never have mediocre lives. Fat causes people to be unhappy. Fat causes people to not take trips to Paris or sing karaoke at a bar. How weird to learn that it was my fat all this time and not actually the stigma and hate put on me because our society that likes to demonize fatties?
So because I, as a fatty, am hated and have had, in their own words, injustices brought against me, I need to change. Not society. I have to limit myself to one meal a day and take hormones and live by a “protocol.” But society? Nah. They’re fine.
In whose brain does this make sense?!
So that was my shock and horror for the day. I’m sure I’ve missed a lot on that website, but after a while I couldn’t read anymore of their bullshit.
All of this from a little sign that shared a window with a larger sign exclaiming the dangers of (of all things) flu shots.
- I’m moving to Pluto.
fiercefatties
dufmanno
vesta44
JeninCanada
atchka
erylin
lexiedi
joannadeadwinter
dr deah
shaunta
roundgirlrocks
hlkolaya
lifeonfats
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osufem
onefabulousmamaistheshiznet
The Smokin' Deist
showmediabetes
drpattiethomas
This is awesome. I wonder if they attempted this tactic during the Civil Rights Movement. “Hey black people, tired of lynchings, segregation and dehumanization? Inject yourself with pregnant lady pee and it’ll all work out!”
Great find, Lexie, but I have to correct you on one part: Pluto is no longer a planet.
Peace,
Shannon
It’s a dwarf planet still, they haven’t demoted it all the way down to an asteroid, lol.
I’ve decided not to live on a planet at all, then.
Dwarf Non-Planet of the Fatties formerly known as Pluto.
RIP. I just died of face palming too much.
*leaves flowers* Her poor, beautiful face… palmed to death.
I can understand horrified, or even disgusted, but shocked? Why were you shocked?
The 1950s is relatively recent. There are many purveyors of supposed cures who say in their ads, “Do what the ancient [insert ethnic group here] did to preserve their health and longevity!”, knowing that this is a selling point for lots of people.
It’s true. It’s hard to shock me any more. But this shocked me. I think it was the 500 Calories a day thing The first I saw of Calories on the site mentioned that you could eat a “high Calorie” diet of 1200-1800 Calories a day. I thought, “What? THAT is ‘high Calorie’?” Then I saw the 500 Calories thing and was just taken aback.
Shouldn’t have been shocked. But I was. The diet industry will try anything.
With as many advances as we’ve made in medicine since the 1950s, sadly, it seems that we’ve made none when it comes to being fat and how that affects our health. And I know, I was born in 1953, so I’ve been around for most of the advances made, and I’ve been around long enough to see how many of those diets that are sold to us are really only maybe 3 or 4 actual different diet plans, but they’re all re-packaged/re-named/re-sold to us as a “new, miracle cure” every few years, when the diet industry thinks that it’s time to try something else because people are getting tired of trying the same old 3 or 4 diets and not getting/staying thin. Cynical? Me? Whatever makes you say that?
being in total agreement my only comment is how freaking cute the pic of the abominable snowman is! Now take me to the island of misfit toys..
Of course there are never any long lived fat people! Why my mythological 300 pound great grandmother didn’t live to almost 80 only to die of acute myeloid leukemia rather than any of the Deathfat diseases. Of course she didn’t because old fat people don’t exist! She must have been a figment of my family’s imagination.
This is what we’ve come to…we’re so horrified at fat and fat people that we believe injecting pregnant woman piss into our veins and starving ourselves is healthier than I don’t know…just eating in particular and trying to be as active as we can, based on what limits we know our bodies can tolerate? It sounds like an episode of The Twilight Zone. Sorry Rod, but I’ll pass on this one!
My reactions:
- HcG is a pregnancy hormone, and I thought the general idea with pregnancy was that you, you know, gain weight? How did anyone even think this one up?
- A chiropractor’s office? Like, that has what to do with crazy diets anyway? (Unless it’s the general idea that weight loss is a cure for any kind of joint issue. Heard the ‘obesity = inevitable osteoarthritis’ thing being touted on the radio this morning, as if there wasn’t enough anti-fat hysteria in the UK news right now. Gah.)
- Abominable is almost the most melodramatic word in the English language, but for me it comes second to eldritch. The day anyone describes fat as ‘eldritch’, I shall know we’re all doomed as the Great Old Ones arise from the deep and….sorry, it all went a bit H.P Lovecraft there.
That was awesome, Emerald! Now I want to be an eldritch fatty! (Heh. We’re evil anyway, right? Why choose a lesser evil?) Maybe I need to reread some of old H.P. so I can slip into that distinctive style…
Ugh. You’re right, lexiedi, that’s just beyond the pale. No wonder it doesn’t call for exercise - on 500 calories a day, who’d have the energy? I think they actually do hit the nail on the head in blaming fat hate for the misery of fat people… but then they declare that the solution is for fat people to follow their diet to skinniness, not for people to stop hating on us. Not just stupidity, but willful, blinkered stupidity.
I have no words… not printable ones, anyway.
Anybody that can go Mythos Cultist is okay by me! Iä. Iä, Cthulhu fthagn!
According to the world health organization, a diet of less than 900 calories a day is starvation. It’s also an eating disorder if you’re doing it on purpose. 500 calories.. mind blowing..
You know what the most horrifying thing about this is? There is a woman at my office who is on this diet, and goes on and on about how she gets 800 cals (that’s at least 300 more than in the ad) a day and still keeps dropping weight like crazy due to injecting hormones her body doesn’t need. ARGH!
I was THIS close to just smashing my head against my desk to seek sweet oblivion today when she started again.
She’s fit, she’s fabulous, she runs (literally power-walks or runs) around all day on at least 4-inch heels (when my feet would cry in pain and wither away at the mere thought of this athletic masterpiece), and oh yeah, she can also buy clothes at Lane Bryant. But she thinks she has to risk her life on artificial hormones AND thinks it’s the best thing since sliced bread.
This is what I call brainwashing.
That sounds like the sort of diet a Pro-Anorexia website would endorse. 0.o
I had heard about the process of injecting pregnancy hormones for weight loss, and was appalled. I had no idea that a danger diet accompanied it!