Seriously, this is what she looks like 6 weeks after giving birth?!

Is Ashlee Simpson Fall Out Boy’s Yoko Ono?

Welcome to the fad diets of 2010.

Taylor Swift is too busy for her fans.

11-year-old gives birth…on her wedding day.

Uh. That’s Lady Gaga? Holy crap.

[Jill has been dabbling in the 4 Day Diet and sharing her journey with us. We saw her first week and the challenges she faced on week 2.  She faced some challenges in week 3 and now she's finally dunzo. And happy about it.]

So I finished the month.

And while I think the 4-Day Diet has its positives and is a great eating plan for people new to the health/weight loss game, I realized why I don’t succeed on programs like this:

I become obsessed with food.

I stare at my food list 12 times a day and spend the rest of my time constantly thinking about my next meal or snack. Result: I think I’m hungry (always) when I’m not. And that’s not the best feeling when you are trying to lose a few pounds, eh?

The thing is, I know how to eat healthy and I know what I should and shouldn’t be doing. I personally did not need someone to tell me what kinds of foods are good for me and what are not. I just needed to stop eating the crap I knew was bad. Read More »

Some “buttah” is exactly what dietician Edith Blum recommends in her new book, Eat, Drink, and Be Gorgeous, which claims that eating full-fat foods instead of fat-free foods can help you lose weight!

So what does this mean?

Chocolate every day? Check.

Cocktails? Check.

Cheese, chocolate cake, biscuits, avocado, whole milk, chips, and sorbets? Check, check, and check.

This “no-diet diet” allows you to enjoy the foods you love that are usually condemned by the common fad diets that we occassionally follow. Or try to follow, at least. But lemon water, cabbage soup, and a crate full of bananas just aren’t realistic methods of losing weight in the long run. Blum advises us to forget our traditional beliefs of what good foods and bad foods are, and focus on the nutritional qualities of each food instead.

On food:

Fat is good; we need cholesterol and certain saturated fats to make and regulate our hormones, so we can avoid depression and even cancer. Quality trumps quantity in importance, Blum stresses, so certain “fabulous fats” found in nuts, seeds, and olive oil should be ingested at every meal, while “frankenfats” such as those in low-fat, low-cholesterol spreads and margarines should be banned from your diet to ward off headaches and and joint aches. Eat egg yolks in conjunction with egg whites, and don’t say no to that little voice in your head that screams for a smear of hot butter on warm toast. Starchy foods like rice, beans, and corn are also good for you, as well as the occasional cocktail, as long as there’s no sugar. Read More »

[Jill has been dabbling in the 4 Day Diet and sharing her journey with us. See how her first week went here.]

Week Two was a lot harder for me than Week One. I lost 4 pounds in the first week, but my typical yo-yo self sees results and then thinks it’s a free for all. The Smooth and Protein Stretch modules gave me a lot more choices, more flexibility and my favorite 5 letter word: P-I-Z-Z-A. Holler. Surely any girl watching her weight would do a Kirsten Dunst in Bring It On type cheer if instructed to eat TWO pieces of pizza. But not me.

Because I knew once I started with the Pizza all hell would break loose.  And by hell I mean the inner voice inside of me who tells me that while watching TV, I should devour everything in my kitchen. She really is a biznatch, that voice. Sometimes I think that eating a little more peanut butter on a spoon with chocolate chips will shut her up. But sadly, that chick is too legit to quit, and even the recent salmonella threat won’t scare her away. Not-a-chance.

Not that I like to blame everything on that time of the month, but I think I had a harder time staying under control this week because I was so. very. PMS that even my boss noticed me crying at a commercial. True story.

By week’s end, the scale was back up the 4 pounds I was down; I’m hoping it was because of my monthly visitor, but after the amount I consumed (fresh baked banana bread, anyone?) I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just from over-doing it. Read More »

So it’s been a week since I decided to start Dr. Ian Smith’s 4 Day Diet. I’ve completed two modules, resisted a whole lot of temptation, and successfully started the plan.

I told myself during these first two phases that I would follow the plan as strictly as I possibly could. Afterall, the beginning is the kick-start, sets the tone, and would get me into the right mindset.

The first four days (detox) consisted mostly of fruits, green veggies, brown rice, beans, legumes, and a little bit of yogurt and eggs. I never realized how great of an option (and how filling) beans were. I made a fabulous bean salad drizzled with some balsamic vinegar and lemon juice that was scrumptious and kept me full all afternoon.

The second set of four days (transition) was similar food-wise to the Detox days, but started to add back some more food. Colored veggies, proteins, even two snacks a day from a huge list in the back of the book (ranging from cottage cheese to a sweet potato to 1/2 cup fro yo etc).

I noticed the first day of detox was the hardest day all week. My body wasn’t used to no sugar (aside from the sugar in fruit) so I felt a bit sluggish, which I anticipated.

But after day one, I was bursting with energy. Read More »

I hate diets. I do. I don’t believe in them. I think diets just lead to breaking diets which leads to eating a whole lot of pizza and then feeling guilty about it. And I don’t think anyone should feel guilty for indulging in the deliciousness that is pizza every now and then.

So imagine my own surprise when I found myself buying a copy of Dr. Ian Smith’s new “diet” The Four Day Diet last week.

Fact is, these past two years, I have been in a constant fight with my weight. It goes up 5 pounds it goes down 4 it goes up 3 it goes down 1. It fluctuates more than Christina Aguilera’s voice on any given song. I can’t seem to successfully lose and keep off these last couple of pounds. Even though I do eat pretty healthy. Even though I workout 5-6 days a week. Even though I know the importance of complex carbs. And lots of veggies. And fiber. Oh boy do I know about fiber. I’ve read it all – I know the spiels.

So after realizing that complaining about the lack of results doesn’t do me any good and just makes those around me more miserable, I decided that I wanted to do something to give my body (and my metabolism) the real kick in the ass that it needs. Something to get back on track, clean my act up a bit to start seeing progress again. I know it’s cliché to start some sort of weight loss resolution in January, but here it goes. I’m trying it out. And blogging about it for you here.

The 4 Day Diet drew me in because it seems simple. And it’s just that- only 4 days. Well, 4 days at a time. There are 7 modules each lasting for only 4 days. Surely I can stick to something for 4 days! It works out perfectly: just when you get sick of eating one way you switch it up. Read More »

When you think about hypnotism, images such as a creepy old guy dangling a gold watch in front of some unsuspecting stranger and making him do crazy stuff like backflips and squawking like a chicken tend to float towards the front of your mind (or if you’re as obsessed with Harry Potter as I am, the Imperius Curse that Moody cast on that poor spider).

But can it help you lose weight?

Hypno-dieting, a new trend that just emerged in the U.S., has been popularized by its celebrity following, including former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell and British model Sophie Dahl. Recently, Lily Allen made headlines when she too endorsed this new type of fad diet, claiming that after several sessions she felt more inclined to choose healthy, low-fat meals rather than junk food. All of which made her lose 2 dress sizes! It’s also helped her give up her beloved bottle of booze, a feat in itself (of which many of my dormmates might take note).

Personally, I think all of this is just hyped-up mumbo-jumbo. I do realize that a healthy approach towards food is a key aspect of living a healthy life, and that counseling could help you get there, but a hypnotist? That seems a little extreme. This reminds me of other weird diets that have gone in and out of fashion, like the Breatharian Diet (yes, a diet based on living off of air- so chock full of nutrients, I suppose) or the diet that Emily from The Devil Wears Prada is on, which she describes as: Read More »