weird diets

Not four and not six.

Apparently five is the perfect number of bites to take at your next meal. Dr Alwin Lewis's book Why Weight Around recommends the five bite approach to weight loss.

Are you obsessed with celebrity diet 'secrets' - those tabloid tidbits that appear like clockwork in every gossip magazine?

Authors Kym Douglas and Cindy Pearlman have rounded them all up and made a book out of it: The Black Book of Hollywood Diet Secrets.

The Shoe Diet, by Isabelle R. Shaw, is about using shoes as a motivation for eating better.

Yes. Shoes.

At first I thought this was a spoof or satire - but apparently not. “Food and shoes. Who would’ve thought the two were related? A clever, neurobiological explanation that gives a new meaning to the term ‘head over heels’!” —Dr. Anne Germain, Clinical Psychologist, University of Pittsburg Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA

Recent research suggested that those who sleep more tend to avoid weight gain. Someone has taken that idea and created a book out of it (UK release only).

The Duvet Diet is a new release from Jane Worthington and Dr Clare Collins.A leading sleep scientist advises readers on beating night stress, incorporating exercise into their life to promote better sleep, avoiding sleep-sabotaging chemicals and much more. With "The Duvet Diet" you really will be able to sleep yourself slim!

As part of an experiment for BBC TV, a group of volunteers set up a tent in a zoo -- and ate like the apes for 12 days.

A nutritionist devised a " three-day rotating menu of fruit, vegetables, nuts and honey". This worked out to about 5kg (11lb) or food per person per day,

Morgan Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald's food. Adam Scott (aka "the last angry young man") is eating nothing but Monkey Chow - a pelletised nutritionally complete food for monkeys.

The Shangri La Diet is absurd, ridiculous, and remarkable. It is quite simply one of the most unusual weight loss books ever written. Author Seth Roberts presents his radical ideas without melodrama or hype, and comes up with a weight loss diet that is both controversial and intriguing.

Menswear designer Hedi Slimane creates slim-fitting clothes - probably because he is rather thin himself. The Telegraph reports that his 'secret' is baby food. "The less I chew, the better," he tells one interviewer. Chicken, according to rumour, is his favourite flavour.

The Jerusalem Diet was written by Colorado Springs pastor Ted Haggard. The name was inspired by Haggard's trips to Jerusalem where he decided to lose weight. The book is described as "simple, guilt-free, and life-changing". Apparently Haggard "finds that the routine of weighing himself every day serves as a good deterrent to overeating".

(satire) At last - an inexpensive 4 day meal plan. It is inspired by the svelte slim form of 2 year old kids the world over, and is perfect for the whole family.