Fad Diets: An Investigation

Day 0

“You don’t need to go on a diet,” a friend tells me, “you look great.”

“Thank you,” I say, as I spoon another bite of Rice Krispies into my mouth, “but actually I’m not doing it to lose weight, I’m doing it in the name of journalism. And to be healthy.”

“I just don’t get how a diet where you only eat one color a day is healthy?”

“It’s on WebMD.”

“And does WebMD recommend it?”

“Of course not.”

At the end of October, I started a fad diet. It wasn’t so much to lose weight. Besides, I have already tried many different approaches to weight loss, including the MD recommended, but my endocrinologist refuses to up my thyroid medication. No, it was more in the name of journalism, to investigate if all those miracle diet ads that pop-up on your Facebook feed really work. The people need to know.

My first plan had been to try the Master Cleanse, because Piper had done it on “Orange is the New Black,” and I thought it would be a good idea to emulate a television character who ends up in prison. The Master Cleanse is a 10-45 day diet where you consume a concoction of lemonade, maple syrup, cayenne pepper and unlimited laxatives. This is about 600 calories a day. You are supposed to feel a “detoxing” pain in your liver, and according to WebMD you might also experience vomiting, painful urination and fatigue. However, since I am locked into an unlimited college meal plan that costs my parents over $5,000 a year, I have no way to justify spending extra money on food to starve myself into thinness. I’m also pretty sure that Dunster dining hall doesn’t serve laxatives.

I then considered the Five-Bite Diet, created by Dr. Lewis MD, which says you can only eat five bites of any food for lunch and dinner, but have to skip breakfast. Despite fitting all of my requirements (it was cheap), it didn’t work out.

That brought me to The Color Diet, something that I could at least camouflage as healthy. The Color Diet claims to introduce more vitamins into your meals by eating only one color a day. To prepare, I decided to eat a mix of every colored Starburst the night before.

Day 1 White

“It is white day!” I proclaim, when I run into friends in Harvard Square on my way to class. We all agree that I shouldn’t yell this in public. For breakfast I only have coffee (with milk) and water, so by lunchtime I am starving. I go for a meal of cottage cheese, egg whites, cottage cheese mixed with egg whites and some Greek yogurt. For dinner, I repeat, and throw in a banana and three cups of mini marshmallows. According to the Livestrong website, which dictated the rules of the particular diet I was following, white foods contain anthoxanthins, which lower blood pressure.

Day 2 Red

By day two, the diet has become my sole topic of conversation. This is partly because “red day” is more socially acceptable to say in public (barely),  but also because I can not mentally think of anything else to talk about. Thinking burns valuable calories.

Bruno, the owner of Al’s Sandwich shop, is particularly supportive. “We have salads,” he says, after I tell him that I am on a diet. I ask him if I could hypothetically get the garden salad but with just the cherry tomatoes and red onions. “Anything for you dear,” he says. However, I decline, I am late for class.

For lunch I eat a vitamin-rich meal of beets, an apple, a bowl of tomato sauce, five cherry-flavored hard candies, and an unguarded can of Polar seltzer water that I find in the lobby of the Kennedy School. It is cranberry-lime flavor.

Red foods are full of lycopene, a vitamin that reduces the risk of prostate cancer. I tell this fact to my friend Rosa over dinner as she watches me eat half a watermelon and two bowls of tomato sauce. “That’s pink,” she says, pointing to my cup of strawberry-banana frozen yogurt.“Yea, but my diet says I can have strawberries. And I can’t handle any more apples.”The part about the apples is a lie. I somehow manage to eat another two before the end of the night, before I resort to picking out the red fruit loops from the cereal dispenser in the dining hall.

Day 3 Green

By now the whole dining hall, except for my friend Jawad, knows what I am doing. Instead of the usual salutation, everyone asks me what color I am eating. Jawad asks me if I am fucking mental. He doesn’t understand how only eating green food does anything to inform the public about how insane fad diets are.

“Does anyone even do this besides you?”

“Yes, the other journalists.”

Green Day is a good day. Because I am scared that this will be my last substantive meal until day seven – rainbow day – I eat bowl after bowl of fava bean soup, soybeans and steamed broccoli. I also have a couple of green apples for a late night snack. According to Livestrong, green food contains chlorophyll. The website doesn’t explain how this is good for you, but I assume it has something to do with photosynthesizing or prostate health.

After reading the Livestrong website a little more closely, I realize that it recommends eating other colors in addition to the main color of the day, but after red day’s bowls of tomato sauce I am too invested to turn back.

Day 4 Orange

Since I am starting to feel congested, I eat an orange and two gummy vitamins for breakfast. Orange and yellow foods contain carotenoids, which help with your eyesight, immune system, and the prevention of some cancers. Since I take my health seriously, I eat bowl after bowl of steamed carrots and a Claritin, which is technically blue.

A dining hall worker catches me picking out the orange hard candies from the candy dish. She gives me a sympathetic smile. “No one likes the purple ones.”

Day 5 Purple

Livestrong recommends that I eat blackberries, blueberries, plums, eggplant, figs, purple grapes, prunes and raisins as these foods are full of antioxidants. My dining hall only has raisins. I eat blueberry yogurt, pomegranate frozen yogurt and my last two grape gummy vitamins. I almost cry when after crowdsourcing the dining hall, the consensus is that black beans are not purple. I have to resort to picking out the purple lettuce leaves from the mixed greens salad. The dining hall staff would be pleased to know that I also eat a half-dozen purple hard candies.

I no longer have the energy to tell people about my diet.

Day 6 Yellow

The combination of congestion-muted taste buds and dieting has taken all of the joy out of food. If I hadn’t already told everyone that I was doing this diet, I would probably have given up by now. I eat eggs, corn and a pear for lunch. For dinner I eat baby corn and yellow custard. I take some liberties in the evening and assume that adding vodka to orange juice is yellow enough. In my defense, I need the vitamin C.

Day 7 Rainbow Day

During my research, I noted that most diet journalists end their diet with a celebratory feast (always pizza), regardless of the fact that most of them actually gain weight. For me, I somehow managed to lose a whole pound despite being on the Color Diet, although if you factor in the weight that I gained in preparation for the week, I am basically where I started. At least I don’t have to worry about prostate cancer for a while.

Nicole Levin ’15 is a government concentrator in Dunster House. Her latest fad diet is called “alcoholism.”