Fad Diets and Laughing the Pounds Away With the Zodiac

Fad diets are often so strange that they're funny. Of course, it's also extremely sad to think that there are people desperate enough to take fads seriously and actually try them. One reason could be that these diets offer the promise of fast weight loss, but the problem is most of them are either unbalanced nutritionally or just too bizarre to take seriously.

My personal favorite is the Caveman Diet (Prehistoric Diet, Stone Age Diet, Paleolithic Diet), which involves mimicking the eating habits of the caveman and only eating food that can be hunted and gathered. Allowed foods include lean meat (I suppose dinosaur meat was lean), fish, vegetables, fruit, roots, nuts, and insects. Yes, insects. You can't have grains, legumes, dairy products, salt, refined sugar, and processed oils. No more twinkies either.

What is the logic behind patterning my eating habits after a caveman? Wasn't their average life span 15 years old or something? Maybe the secret to this diet is you're just too tired to eat after all that hunting and gathering.

A few other interesting ones include:

• The Air Diet where all you have to do is breathe. Best of all, you can do this while working, sleeping, showering, and eating. How novel. Obviously I need to make sure I'm breathing during these activities because I assumed I was already, yet those extra pounds are still hanging around.
• The Blood Type Diet involves only eating foods according to your blood type. Of course, there's a book you have to buy to figure out what you can eat.
• The Tapeworm Diet is plain disgusting, and Snopes.com has yet to decide if this is fact or fiction, but they do report evidence that tapeworm pills were marketed in the early 1900's as a diet aid.

Not to be outdone by these highly creative and progressive thinkers, I've been digging in the depths of my brain to develop my own fad diet. I finally decided that the most logical place to start brainstorming is with something I'm passionate about--astrology. Now I'm ready to reveal a carefully designed series of fad diets individualized for each sun sign of the zodiac and compiled into one big master plan called:

THE ZODIAC DIET

Keywords: Willpower, impulsive, initiative, courage, energy, activity

Eat What You Want, You'll Do It Anyway Diet

Nobody can tell an Aries what to do. I would be wasting my time attempting to suggest a plan for you. Eat whatever in the hell you want because you're just going to eat what you want anyway.

Keywords: Sensual, pleasure-seeker, steadfast, strives for security

The Grazing Diet

Slow and plodding Taurus, you love earthly pleasures and you like to take your time in savoring every exciting moment and yummy morsel that comes your way. My diet advice to you is to graze your way through the day. Stock up on protein bars, sun chips, beef jerky, trail mix, portable yogurt tubes, and anything that you can carry in your pockets or purse to graze on all through the day. You should also have plenty of portable potions in a can, like shakes, energy drinks, or anything that looks tropical. Having food with you all day will keep you full and secure. There are no restrictions for this diet except that if you can't stuff it in your pockets, you can't eat it.

Keywords: Mental type, witty, communicative, mobile, loves learning

Fidgety Finger Food Diet

Gemini, you are the ultimate air sign of the entire zodiac. Your hands are always in motion, especially when you talk, and sitting for an extended time is so painful for you. Your diet involves eating only food that can be eaten with your fingers, like sandwiches, chicken wings, tacos, burritos, hamburgers, hot dogs, curly fries, and so on. It will fit your lifestyle perfectly to lay out a tray of sandwiches to munch on while reading a book about the latest gadget while having a 3-way conversation with friends and clipping your toenails.

Keywords: Emotional, stubborn, seeks safety and closeness, family-oriented

Bubba's Home Cookin' Diet

Being a sensitive homebody is what a Cancer's family adores most, and they will love you even more now because your diet plan involves making everything from scratch. Don't even think about stopping at Quickie Mart to buy a loaf of bread. You'll need "Bubba's Home Cookin" cookbook and a crock-pot, but you can conveniently order one from any home shopping network for $9.98 plus $49.50 shipping, and if you order right now, like before you finish this sentence, they will give you Bubba's cookbook for free. Warning! Speak clearly when ordering by phone, I ordered a crock-pot and ended up with a crack pipe.

Keywords: Glamour, generosity, organizer, the center of attention

The Caviar Diet

Proud Leo, you are the most regal sign of the zodiac and deserve the very best. Your specialized diet is to eat caviar for every meal whilst beams of sunlight glow around your very essence as you sit on your throne peering down at your peons, um, family. You choose the type of caviar, and you can also choose the vehicle by which it gets transported to your mouth, such as, perfectly cut toast points or imported crackers. Of course, all meals should be served to you on a silver platter as usual.

Keywords: Precise, differentiates, does what is necessary, utilitarian, critical

The Garden Diet

Most Virgo people love to grow things, so you will only eat what you grow in a totally organic vegetable garden. Being a stickler for fine details, you should plan your garden well in advance and make sure the rows of vegetables are planted in alphabetical order. Never plant zucchini next to the banana peppers! Keep carefully detailed mental notes of everything you do so that you can properly criticize others when they plant their gardens. Perhaps you can also publish a how-to book: Vegetable Gardening for Dummies Like You Who Aren't a Perfect Virgo Like Me.

Keywords: A sense of beauty and proportion, tactful, seeks balance and harmony

Make a Choice or Starve Diet

Lovely Libra, always striving for balance and harmony, but would you please make up your mind for once? Your diet is a challenge where you're given three different menus to choose from for each meal. If it takes you till dinner to choose one breakfast menu, then you only get that one meal. If you never make a choice at all, then at least you'll have a head start on the next morning.

Keywords: Corrosive, passionate, piercing, extreme situations, research, deep thinker

Cross Me and I'll Stalk You For Months Then You'll Be My Lunch Diet

As the most intense sign of the zodiac, a Scorpio knows it's unnecessary to literally eat your victims. It's much more fun to stalk them, figure out what makes them tick, then make them do your bidding. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to use the deep, penetrating powers of your mind to control the minds of others forcing them to prepare and deliver your meals to you. If you wish to turn them into confused babbling idiots along the way, then that's your choice.

Keywords: Free spirit, carefree, love of movement, cheerful, travel

5 Card Draw Diet

Nobody loves adventure and gambling more than a Sagittarius, and this special diet was designed to satisfy those needs. First, write each of the following on separate index cards: Spaghetti O's, Hungry Man Frozen Dinner, Pizza Hut, 5 star restaurant, and Madagascar hissing cockroaches. Each day you will shuffle the cards and randomly draw one that represents what you eat for that day. If you're feeling particularly adventurous, then you can have another person pick a card and place bets on the outcome.

Keywords: Enduring, sense of purpose, proud, ambitious

The Intravenous Diet

Also known as the IV Diet, the Capricorn workaholic will never have to stop climbing the ladder to success to do something as tedious as eating again. Installation requires a quick trip to a local medical center to have the needle placed in a vein, but, after that, all your nutrition is conveniently stored in a bag and toted on a pole with wheels. Best of all, the IV pole comes in 6 different colors, and you can replace the standard wheels with roller blade wheels.

Keywords: Communicative, humanitarian, progressive, inventive

The Space Food Diet

Ah, Aquarius, you're the mental pioneer of the zodiac who is original, inventive, friendly, and confident, but let's face facts, you're a little ‘out there' and so are your friends. Your new diet plan will compliment and add some flash to your already rather eccentric essence. The Space Food Diet is all about eating what the astronauts eat. Why not? It's healthy, handy, and pretty darned tasty. Plus, have you ever seen an obese astronaut? Your space food can be carried with you, there's no preparation necessary, it's a wonderful conversation starter, and you'll look really cool eating it.

Keywords: Sensitive, compassionate, helpful, sociable, adaptable, psychic

Meditation Diet

Pisces, as the most compassionate and spiritually plugged-in sign of the zodiac, you will have no problem in meditating your hunger pangs away. However, if hunger overtakes you anyway, and please don't feel guilty if this happens - even Jesus ate some fish and bread, then you can always channel your food from the spirit world. The great thing is that spirit food has no calories, and you can talk to some really cool dead people. If you're a Pisces who isn't as spiritually fine-tuned as most, then "The Guilt Trip Diet" should work very well as a substitution.