Your 2012 Guide to Crazy Weight Loss Trends

It’s a brand new year, and for many of us that means New Year’s Resolutions to make (and eventually break). One of the most common resolutions people make is to “lose weight,” “get healthy,” “exercise more” or some variation of that theme, and the Diet Industry is well aware of this fact. The only truth is to eat well and drink water, also taking supplements like probiotics for constipation. Amazon currently lists at least 100 diet books either published in December 2011 or scheduled to be published in early 2012.

I found myself wondering how many different ways someone could write a book about eating less and moving more, and found myself overwhelmed and delighted by the options available to me. Below, four of the craziest diet trends of 2012.

The Petite Advantage Plan
Written by Jim Karas, who apparently got a business degree from Wharton 20 years ago and has been telling people they’re fat ever since, the Petite Advantage Plan is the diet plan specifically designed for the shorties out there. Weighing in at almost 300 pages, the premise of Mr. Karas’s diet plan seems to be that if you are 5’4” or shorter, you should be eating fewer calories than someone who is, say, 5’8”. Around 1600 per day is a good number. There’s the usual information about exercising, cutting calories, common dieting pitfalls, and the like, and it’s all wrapped up in lots of “Mm-hmm, girlfriend!” and finger-snapping for emphasis.

Buy it if: You’re 5’4” or shorter and you really need a sassy, gay best friend telling you how fabulous you are while simultaneously telling you to put down the donut.

The Happiness Diet
The Happiness Diet is the only one on our list that is actually co-written by a REAL DOCTOR. The book explains that the reason we’re all a bunch of miserable fucks is because of the crap we eat most of the time. The Standard American Diet (or SAD diet, get it?) is responsible for the increases in obesity and depression over the last few decades, which can only be reversed by adopting the Happiness Diet. The Happiness Diet consists of the kinds of food we should all be eating: lots of vegetables and fruits, lean meats, whole grains, etc. There’s nothing really revolutionary here, but instead of just focusing on why we’re all obese, it also provides some thoughtful text on why we’re all depressed and what it really means to be happy.

Buy it if: You’re an emotional eater with a love of cutesy acronyms.

The Weekend Weight-Loss Diet
Penned by self-titled Juice Lady Cherie Calborn, the Weekend Weight-Loss Diet guarantees weight loss by advocating a juice fast every weekend. From Friday evening to Sunday evening, you consume nothing but 20-24 ounces of raw vegetable juice and eight glasses of water per day. You end your weekend with a sensible, raw food dinner Sunday evening, and eat healthily during the rest of the week. You should probably throw in some moderate exercise throughout the week as well. Some might think that eating no actual food for 48 hours might result in headaches, dizziness, and growling tummies, but that’s a small price to pay for looking good, sometimes getting a surgery from https://cliniquemichelgagner.com/ is necessary. As a bonus, you’ll become a cheap drunk!

Buy it if: You really, really like the taste of V8.

A Course in Weight Loss
A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons For Surrendering Your Weight Forever takes a more “holistic” approach to weight loss. According to author Marianne Williamson, one cannot effectively lose weight without addressing the psychological and spiritual reasons for gaining weight in the first place. If you eat pints of Ben & Jerry’s to fill that emotional hole in your gut, you’re not going to stop unless you figure out where that hole comes from and find a better way to fill it, like with shoes. As the author herself says, “Weight that disappears from your body but not from your soul is simply recycling outward for a while but is almost certain to return.” The book brings you 21 spiritual lessons to learn to lose that weight for good!

Buy it if: You could stand to shed a few pounds of emotional baggage as well as ass fat.

Honorable Mention: Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers is one of the most popular (and arguably most effective) weight loss programs on the market today. Each year they try to change things up a bit to attract new subscribers by bringing in new celebrity spokespeople or retooling their program. Their latest gimmick has earned them an Honorable Mention on our list of crazy diets of 2012. In the newest Weight Watchers commercial, spokesperson Jennifer Hudson performs a duet with a younger, fatter version of herself. Watching Fat Jennifer and Skinny Jennifer sing together is both bizarre and strangely fascinating.