The fruit tray located next to the salad bar in the Alfred Packer Grill in the UMC is just one of many options for healthier eating on campus. (CU Independent/Patrick Ghidossi)
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This week I decided to try out a couple of crash diets I had heard about from family and friends. So, I resolved to choose two of them, try each one out for just a day, giving myself a break in between, and see just how unbearable each would pose to be. I went into this week knowing that it would be hard. But, never this hard.
The Dairy Diet
A friend of mine told me all about it.
She said, “Oh yeah! Sure, it’s ‘easy-peasy,’ you get over the hunger right away and you can lose half a pound a day.”
Initially, I thought she was reading the scale wrong, but I checked in for seven days and sure enough, she lost three and a half pounds by the end of the week. She warned me that snacking was an absolute no-no, and the only thing you could drink throughout the day was water. I bit and gave it a try.
I had two cups of low-fat cottage cheese for breakfast around eight in the morning. Then, I left for classes around 11:30. By the time class started at noon, I could not concentrate on anything but the thought of what would be my next meal. I even started doodling food on the side of my notes. Leaving my first class and going to my next two classes was dreadful. I passed people drinking coffee and chai, they were giving out free pizza on campus and my professor happened to bring bagels to class the same day. Oy! I could not wait to get back.
I walked into my apartment at 3:06 p.m., dropping my backpack and coat at the door. I opened the fridge to find my lunch plate, nicely wrapped in saran wrap: 1o cubes of Jack cheese and a blueberry light Yoplait yogurt. Almost faint, I sat down on a bar stool and ate my “meal” in four and a half minutes. 3:15 p.m. I felt fine. By 3:35 p.m. I couldn’t stop thinking about dinner. I had almost three hours.
I took a nap, praying that I could sleep for three hours and forget about the hunger, but my stomach would not stop growling. So I called my girlfriend for support. She told me to “suck it up,” otherwise I wouldn’t see “fast results.” So I did.
But at 6:30 p.m. I ran into the kitchen, whipped up an omelet (two eggs, one glass of milk, pinch of salt) and scoffed it down in eight minutes flat from the moment it hit the plate.
That day, I had 17 glasses of water, nearly twice as much as is recommended as a daily value. I wanted to feel full, but instead I ran to the bathroom every 20 minutes. By 8 p.m., I concluded that this diet was over. It should have ended right after breakfast. I went to weigh myself. I lost three quarters of a pound that day. And, it was completely NOT WORTH IT.
At 8:15 p.m. I made myself a turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato and cheese. Drank a glass of milk and ate a banana. I instantly felt better! The next diet was on Wednesday. I kept my fingers crossed that it would be easier. Boy was I wrong.
The Beet & Rice Diet
And I thought Monday was bad enough. Wednesday morning I woke up, stretched, and went to the kitchen to grab some breakfast. My relative told me about this diet she’d done in college for a month where she dropped from a size 14 to a size 4 in one month. I didn’t believe her. She told me to just try it for a day and watch the weight “slip off.” I didn’t have much to lose and being a diet-obsessive kind of gal who L-O-V-E-S food, I figured I could give up all my favorite foods.
Rice and beets. That was on the menu for the entire day.
Now, it’s news to me to hear people eating beets for breakfast. But I bravely opened my can of beets and plopped them into a bowl. Smelling the vinegary marinade made me want to hurl right then and there.
I don’t think I will ever forget the expression on my roommate’s face when I walked into the kitchen that morning and sat down before her with my bowl of beets.
She stopped spooning her apple-cinnamon oatmeal and asked me “What the f— are you eating?”
I replied by shoving a forkful of beets into my mouth. Oh God, did I want to die right then and there. I sat there with a glass of water and my bowl full of beets for an hour. Swishing water in my mouth between every bite. When I finished, I had completely lost my appetite altogether.
But, same as Monday, by 3 p.m. I was famished. I cooked myself one cup of steamed rice and resolved not to put any beets on top until dinner time. I couldn’t bear that vinegary stench just yet. Again, I felt full when I finished the rice, but it was horribly bland. Rice and water. I felt as though I were some sort of prisoner.
I felt dizzy the rest of the afternoon, hardly being able to concentrate on any of my studies. At 6 p.m. I cooked myself another cup of steamed rice, with a can of beets. The combination made my stomach churn. I would have shoved it away and given up right then and there, but my head was throbbing, sounding its emergency siren for food. I ate it.
I ended up going to bed at 8 p.m. that night. My body felt exhausted. But the following morning, I was a pound and a half lighter. Again, this was definitely NOT WORTH IT.
There are better, healthier ways to lose weight. And everyone is quite aware that the best way to do it is by eating a balanced diet and exercising. Crash dieting only fuels your appetite for all the foods you are depriving your body of. Fast results may seem the most important, but you can only crash diet for so long before your body yearns for something better. The next person who tells me they lost 10 pounds in one week will likely be the person who gains 30 pounds in four months after crash dieting for six weeks.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Julia Blyumkin at Julia.blyumkin@colorado.edu.
