Thursday, December 12, 2024
News, analysis and commentary by UBC Journalism students

Diet mania

Grasp fork. Try to balance every food group onto fork. Place fork into mouth. Repeat. Yes, the holidays were a…

By Sarah Stenabaugh , in Feminizer: Western cultural values , on January 12, 2009

Grasp fork. Try to balance every food group onto fork. Place fork into mouth. Repeat.

Yes, the holidays were a blissful three weeks of overindulgence resulting in my skinny jeans finding a new home in the back of my closet. However, I felt no guilt because I had the master plan. A plan no one else had.

My New Year’s resolution was to lose the holiday poundage and get fit.

Motivated and energetic, I slipped into my black Pumas and bolted for the gym. My smugness immediately vanished after peering into the gym window. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who chose to get fit as a New Year’s resolution. The gym was packed with strange new faces and not one treadmill was vacant.

Defeated, I slowly walked home racking my brain for a different game plan. Drawing only blanks, I decided to consult with the expert-Cosmo Magazine.

Cosmo pointed towards the Banana Bags. According to the magazine, the popular diet trend in New York during 2008 was hooking yourself up to an IV drip (also referred to as the Banana Bag) so that you could get the nutrients you needed to survive without actually eating the food. I have to admit that I remain skeptical.

I’ve heard of starvation diets before, but this one gives deprivation a whole new meaning. It even beats the infamous Master Cleanse: A liquid cleanse that has you only drinking an odd concoction of water, lemon juice, grade B maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and herbal laxatives for ten days.

I can honestly say that I strain to recognize health benefits (if any) in today’s diet fads.

An article in the Vancouver Sun today noted that people often kick-start their New Year’s resolutions by opting for extreme detox diet cleanses in order to rid themselves of holiday bulge. According to the article, health experts warn that trendy detox diets can lead to low blood pressure and in extreme cases can cause heart or kidney failure.

I say thanks, but no thanks, to the Banana Bags. I think I’ve come up with a new master plan.

Firstly, I will start my New Year’s resolution to work out on January 21st when everybody else has forgotten about theirs. Until then, I think I will stick with the good old-fashioned diet known as healthy living and portion control.