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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder whether my friend's diet is stupid and unhealthy or pure genius?

78 replies

mrscog · 05/10/2013 20:47

I have a friend (who isn't really overweight but wanted to lose a few pounds) who has recently been doing the craziest diet I've ever heard of.

Basically she loves chocolate so much and didn't want to give it up so she has 3 bars of chocolate a day ( none greater than 300 calories) and then two tins of low calorie vegetable soup. So her day looks like this:

Breakfast - cup of tea and a Twirl

Lunch - Tin of soup and a Crunchie

Dinner - Tin of soup and a Double Decker

I am torn between revulsion and admiration. On one hand it's low in nutrition, but on the other it is a low calorie diet and I think it might have worked. She's so bloody super cheery as she tucks in to her 'treats'.

I'm considering trying it for a few weeks but then I remember that I have DC and should maybe be more careful with my health.

MN jury, what do you think? It's over to you!

OP posts:
Original poster
mrscog · 05/10/2013 22:25

Ah Iaint she does have more than one cup of tea, probably 3-4. Mairy at least she's not the only one! I love the 'tea all day long then a Chinese takeaway! That would cost a fortune!

OP posts:
Lazysuzanne · 05/10/2013 22:58

dont spose it'll do any harm for a short while, but whats the point?

diets dont work, as soon as she reverts to her old way of eating her body will revert to the level of fat that was commensurate with that way of eating.

if she wants to make a lasting change to her body she'll need a lasting change to her diet.

Surely thats just common sense?

HeroineChick · 05/10/2013 23:01

Ew.

fatlazymummy · 05/10/2013 23:10

Let her get on with it.
Everyone who can read can access information about proper nutrition and fitness nowadays. If she wants to risk her health it's up to her really.

Lazysuzanne · 05/10/2013 23:15

I think it would be quite likely to decrease her insulin sensitivity (because of the high %age of calories from refined carbs) and that would mean that at the end of the diet she'll gain fat more easily than she did before she started to diet.

So she could well regain the weight she lost and then some.

quesadilla · 05/10/2013 23:20

It sounds like your friend is barking and reads too many magazines.

I am not sure whether I am more disturbed by the amount of shit she is eating or her mental state.

CocacolaMum · 05/10/2013 23:26

when I was about 17 I had to stay with a family friend for a few months. Every day they ate 1 slice of toast for breakfast and then for dinner 2 sausages, chips (homemade made but in a fat fryer), tinned peas and 1 slice of bread.. this with a bucket load of coffee throughout the day (except on a sunday when we would have glorious chicken!!!)

I lost 2 stone over the course of 6months when I stayed there... felt like utter crap obviously but it did shift the weight even with the chips EVERY. SODDING. DAY.

Lilacroses · 05/10/2013 23:33

Up to her obviously but I honestly think that short term diets like this are silly and never work in the long term. I do understand her desire to lose weight and giving up favourite treats can be really hard but I also think that good health has to be the main goal for any healthy eating plan. I actually know a few slimish people who have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

ElizabethBathory · 05/10/2013 23:36

Sounds revolting to me and I can't imagine feeling very good or energetic on it, but if it makes her happy and isn't for too long, she'll be fine. I'd have awful skin just having one chocolate bar a day, let alone 3!

chrome100 · 06/10/2013 06:50

I'm ashamed to admit this is not dissimilar to my diet. I'm single, no kids and v lazy in the kitchen. I eat chocolate and breakfast cereal and that's it.

Please don't flame me, I KNOW it's bad, but I'm v slim, feel fine and cycle 25 miles every day. I do know I'm probably storing up problems for the future though. I'm 32 and really want to change, I just can't seem to be able to.

UriGeller · 06/10/2013 07:08

If she was having a big bowl of home made soup, chicken and veg or something, and then a couple pieces of good >75% chocolate twice a day that wouldn't be so bad for short term weight loss.

A tin of processed goo and a bar of dairy milk...completely different and I should think, unsustainable. I predict she'll be heavier in the long term.

buss · 06/10/2013 07:14

thats' an awful diet - she must feel so tired all the time

the most effective diet is to give up sugar - I've lost loads of weight in just 5 weeks but I'm never hungry as I eat what I want (as long as it has no sugar in!)

Tee2072 · 06/10/2013 07:30

Eating sugar does not cause diabetes. And being overweight isn't the only way to get it not does it gaurantee you'll get it.

But she won't stay healthy on that diet.

DinoSnores · 06/10/2013 07:48

dawndonna, "Wonder how non overweight people end up diabetic then.
Of course it's an issue. That much chocolate on a daily basis will add to the potential for diabetes, skinny or otherwise."

Sugar consumption itself isn't the problem necessarily (despite the demonisation of sugar that I see every day on MN). The problem is calorie excess of any sort.

The reason that people get Type 2 diabetes is because they have too much visceral fat, so fat in and around their organs.

It tends to go with subcutaneous fat so people look overweight, but for reasons that aren't completely clear or for some very complex reasons (busy morning today but google the 'overflow hypothesis' if you are interested in a bit more), thin looking people can have lots of fat around their liver, in their muscles etc, which then causes insulin resistance, and then diabetes.

Equally, there are very, very overweight people who don't have much visceral fat, so little insulin resistance, and who are actually metabolically very healthy, even if their joints are not!

DinoSnores · 06/10/2013 07:49

Cross posted with tee, who put what I said much more succinctly!

As for the OP's friend's diet, it does sound dire!

Tee2072 · 06/10/2013 07:57

I was on my phone Dino so I like to be succinct. Grin

I'm on my laptop now:

Sugar is not evil or bad. Excess sugar, like excess anything, is not good for you.

Carbs, which are, of course, a form of sugar, are also not evil or bad.

The key is a balanced diet. Your friend's is not balanced and is not sustainable.

NOTE: I am a Type II diabetic. I got it due to my weight. However, even though I have lost weight, I am still a Type II diabetic and will be for the rest of my life. For the organ/fat reasons mentioned above by Dino.

fuzzpig · 06/10/2013 07:57

Sounds awful to me, and I say that as a major chocoholic.

Ilovemyself · 06/10/2013 07:59

Absolutely crazy. A good healthy balced diet is all that is needed. You can eat whatever you like as a treat, but keep the majority as good healthy food.

You don't ever have to feel Hungary - just eat the right things and the weight will fall away naturally ( although I do wonder about some people's obsession with being the perfect weight - just a few pounds always seems a bit daft to me, although it does depend on the size of the person)

GinOnTwoWheels · 06/10/2013 08:05

Yes, it sounds awful, but if its fewer calories than she burns she will lose weight.

There is a man in America who pretty much eats nothing but big macs, 2 or 3 a day and he is quite slim, which he would be as they are about 500? calories each, so even 3 per day is less than a man needs to maintain his weight.

There was also someone, possibly again in America, who lost a lot of weight on some kind of cake/twinkie diet, again the calories were quite low, but all his food intake was packaged cake and sweets.

As Chrome and Cocacola have said, plenty of people eat like your friend, with mostly low nutrition foods such as white toast, cereal, tinned soups and pastas, along with sweets etc.

While they may not be particularly healthy, they appear to function normally day to day and are often quite slim, although I would expect that they would be tired a lot, but from what I have observed, that is generally overcome by frequent energy drink consumption.

Whether it effects them in the long term, is another question. I know two people like that, one I worked with, who was off sick a lot and a relative, who despite being a mother of 5 healthy DCs, only eats sugared tea and sandwiches, and is quite slim.

NuggetofPurestGreen · 06/10/2013 09:48

buss was wondering recently, when people talk about giving up sugar, do they mean all sugar or just added sugar? As in do they give up naturally occurring sugar and not eat and fruit??

Sorry for thread hijack.

zower · 06/10/2013 10:19

weight aside, i think it often shows in your body/face if you have a v. poor diet. e.g. children who eat rubbish often have a pasty look about them.

Trills · 06/10/2013 10:23

Sounds a bit like the shitty food diet

Lazysuzanne · 06/10/2013 11:56

Does anybody know someone who eats an incredibly healthy diet and yet looks 'pasty' and is overweight and frequently ill?

(just as a corollary to the apparently healthy people who have unhealthy diets)

GeneHuntsMistress · 06/10/2013 12:12

Wow this is exactly my diet!

.....But I also eat 3 meals a day on top. Which is prob why I never lose that extra 7 lbs....

Mintyy · 06/10/2013 12:19

Foul diet! how awful.

I don't really like chocolate, so probably my revulsion stems from that.

But how childish and ridiculous. Is she 16?