Yeah, you read that right! The founder didn’t even bother disguising, so here comes the worst, ugliest and the evilest fad diet.
It’s called the Cigarette diet and for all the true reasons. We weren’t surprised to know that this diet plan originated from the Lucky Strike Cigarette advertising campaign in the 1920s. A typical business strategy.
“Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet” is what they advertised, the literal meaning being to smoke whenever you crave food.
What is crazier than the idea of this diet is that people actually bought it, and even today after a century has passed, and in a far more aware world, many supermodels still follow such trends. We have compiled thorough research on how this diet was expected to work and why you should stay away from it.
How it works:
Cigarettes contain nicotine which is a common hunger suppressant. Food contains calories and the amount of calorie intake is directly proportional to weight gain. The cigarette company found this weak spot of obese and overweight people and decided to fuel their business by highlighting how smoking their cigarettes can help suppress hunger and hence cause weight loss.
So, in order to curb hunger and reduce food intake, smoking cigarettes was encouraged. The idea to replace meals with cigarettes gained fame and many people followed this crazy practice until the late 1940s and early 1950s when epidemiological studies showed a clear link between smoking and lung cancer.
Smoking can lead to weight loss because it increases the metabolic rate of the body but with that, it causes malnourishment as it simultaneously decreases the metabolic efficiency i.e, the absorption of food and nutrition.
We have mentioned below, a list of all the side effects of smoking for your better understanding of why this diet is a complete scam and why you should abstain from it.
Side Effects:
- The first major side effect is that smoking is one of the major causes of mouth and lung cancer. Nicotine works similar to the effect of tar in road construction.
Just like tar, nicotine sticks to the walls of your lungs polluting the healthy and pure oxygen within your blood, it also destroys the alveoli leading to respiratory issues. This is perhaps one reason why most smokers have asthma or other respiratory issues.
- Another major and criminal con factor of smoking is that not only are you harming yourself but you are also destroying the air around you. Those who live with you are automatically affected as they are also inhaling nicotine from the air you polluted which makes them passive smokers.
So, following this diet plan will not only affect your well-being but will also affect the health of your family and friends.
- Smoking causes insulin resistance which puts you at risk of diabetes.
- Nicotine and other chemicals in cigarettes can cause thickening of the blood which results in clot formation within the arteries thus leading to coronary heart diseases, heart attacks and strokes.
- The narrowing of blood vessels results in a limited supply of oxygen and nutrition to the skin which causes wrinkles and pre-mature ageing. It also causes severe dehydration which drains away all the moisture and youth from your skin.
The list continues but for now, these are a few side effects you should know before jumping into this scam of a diet.
Conclusion:
We have always been concerned about this fad diet culture which sells the horrible idea of shrinking yourself to fit into these so-called beauty standards, and how they cover their ugly truths by disguising their insane concepts as diet plans.
But here comes the worst of them all, The Cigarette Diet.
Here is what we have to say.
Your body deserves every ounce of respect, so don’t ever deprive yourself of it. No matter what your weight or body type is, no matter how many flaws you think you have, never forget that this body is a home for your soul, so value it, nourish it, and above all respect it.
If you are overweight go to a gym and start eating healthy, don’t give up until you get to your healthy body weight. That should be your way of changing things around.
Expecting healthy weight loss by smoking cigarettes is just a wild goose chase.