Interesting. Lose nine pounds six ounces in nine months. I’ll have to try that.
My head is still attached to my shoulders, so no. I have presented her with two other copycat diets under different names (to disprove the GM/Johns Hopkins link), and we’ve done the number thing. She’s laying low right now, but I fear she may try to spring this on me Friday night or Saturday morning.
On the bright side, the soup doesn’t smell too bad.
I’ve tried it.
In fact, about 15 or so years ago I and all of the women in my office tried it the same week. Lemme see if I can remember…it was me, Louise, Joanne, Rosette and Caroline. We started on a monday. Only one or two of us made it through the entire 7 days. The rest bailed somewhere along the way or lost interest around day 6 when the weekend rolled around. As I recall there was some impressive weight loss 7 lbs, 5 lbs, 10 lbs. Everyone’s weight went right back up to where it had been almost immediately, within a couple of days. By the end of the week after the diet Joanne asked the group how they were doing. To a person we’d all gained back everything we’d lost. “Well, I guess that was a waste of time” she said. We all agreed.
Tell your wife that if she’s really all that interested in seeing the number on the scale go down for a week to go ahead and torture herself. (it does feel like torture). This is not fat loss. She won’t actually be a smaller size.
Better yet, have her read this thread.
A voice of experience. Sweet!
According to The Hacker’s Diet which I admit was written by an engineer, not a doctor, the average body contains roughly 13.5 lbs of ‘throughput mass’. So if you go on a diet that causes liquids and solids to abandon ship, you can lose a quick 13.5 pounds without changing your body at all.
Of course, as soon as food isn’t going through you like grass through a goose. . . . well, you’ve already heard it.
The OP’s wife is expecting him to embark on this fruitless (heh) journey.
Well duh. Chemicals!
There was actually an entire hour-long program on British TV the other day that said stuff like “this commercial lipstick has over 100 chemicals in it! Try this artichoke-based lipstick - it’s got no chemicals at all!!1”
According to this link , what that experiment proved was that people relied more on their eyes than on their stomach to tell them when they were full. I understand what you’re saying, but I think the truth is that many people will eat past the point of feeling full, or will not even think to try to determine it.
I’ll be the voice of dissent here. I think these kinds of diets can be a good idea. Here’s why:
Most fat people have terrible eating habits. Psychologically, it’s nearly impossible to just slip effortlessly into good eating habits. You have to do something shocking to upset your patterns. Following an “extreme” regimen for 7 days is a good “gateway” to then adopt a more moderate healthy diet. Plus, you really would lose 7-10 pounds in a week, which would serve as a huge moral victory and motivation for not slipping back into the old habits.
It’s like going through boot camp before becoming a soldier. You need your ass kicked, and you need the thrill of succeeding.
And yet, oddly enough, they still never really work.
My dad actually does this diet every now and then, to a certain extent. He’ll do it before holidays and other occasions where he knows he is going to eat a lot; while it’s not really a healthy idea, the minor weight loss that does occur (5-7 lbs.) makes it okay for when he eats three servings of prime rib on Christmas and goes back up to his regular weight when the holidays are over.
I do think the psychological affect mentioned by Key Lime Guy is somewhat present and can be a good temporary boost for one’s self esteem, even if the diet isn’t healthy. I guess whether one cancels out the other is a personal decision. Personally I wouldn’t do this simply because I can NEVER follow restrictive diets… since I only need to maintain the healthy weight I’m at, I just try to eat right and exercise.
Also, the vegetable soup recipe is actually pretty good. My whole family eats it. I usually put cheese on mine though, and eat it with a side of bread and butter 
It’s not that people eat past feeling full–both parties reported being equally full. It’s that “full” isn’t completely regulated by the stomach–the eyes do a good bit of that, as well.
She wanted to embark on it, but she didn’t want to go solo. I think I’ve talked her off of the ledge and we’re not going through with this.
Great to hear.
Now do her a favor and buy her this book. It’s based on hard science and not some interweb meme.
I’m not sure I’d put much stock in the USDA. Didn’t they recently reverse their food pyramid? Besides that, all the glurge about this diet claims that the USDA (along with the FDA) helped fund its development. Honestly, I’ve yet to see anything that firmly ties this diet to General Motors. Even Wikipedia took its page down.
I have this one. We’ve both read it, and I’ve changed some of my eating habits, especially adding more high-volume, low calorie foods and more whole grains in place of refined grains. Simple stuff, which has helped me stabilize my weight (versus the expanding it was doing) and even losing some.
I saw something on tv a little while ago about this kind of thing - the never-ending soup bowl is one part of it. Other aspects were how much people will eat when there is an abundance of food (like a buffet), the effects of other people eating in a social setting (like a Superbowl party, where everybody grazes all day even when not hungry), the portion sizes and plate sizes, etc. It was fascinating to see how appetite and eating ties in with visual and social cues. I think they might be onto something important with this research.
I have never understood the attraction to these kinds of diets. They are obviously unsustainable, and the weight you lose is not fat. What is the point? “I can torture myself and weigh less for 2 days and then gain it back when I eat like a normal person. Hooray.” The whole point of weight loss is to have it be fat, not water! Should I brag to everyone after I have my baby that I lost 10 pounds in 2 hours (baby + fluid and stuff)? Woo-hoo, the best diet ever!!!
Find an eating plan that you can stick to, and make changes that will last forever, and you can keep weight off. This kind of crap is the reason why you hear people say “I tried every diet out there and nothing worked for me, ever!” Well, duh…diets are stupid and they don’t work long term for anyone. If you go off the diet, you gain the weight back!