The Celebrity IV Diet
Thought it couldn’t get any crazier than the baby food diet or the swallow a tapeworm diet? While surfing around gossip blogs today, I ran across a reference to celebrities going on an “IV diet.” As in intravenous. Diet. I found the blurb here:
One of Hollywood’s dirty little secrets is the ‘IV diet’, in which celebrities check themselves into hospital to get put on an IV so they can avoid eating altogether.
Obviously only celebrities are rich enough to get away with claiming “exhaustion” and then paying someone to help them starve themselves for a week at a time—it’s like the celebrity version of having your mouth wired shut. But for some reason I also thought being on an IV made you puffy—did I make that up? I might need some science up in here.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Cold Hard Cash, Eating Disorders, Gossip, Health, International, Science, Tidbit, Weight Loss
I get hella puffy when I have a drip in me, but that goes away once you disconnect. And I don’t understand why you don’t have to eat, it’s just saline solution. I thought you needed more than that to survive, even for a week. Maybe they’re also knocked out in the process?
Whether or not you get puffy has to do with the drip they give you. A normal saline drip is designed to keep the fluid in the veins, so you are less likely to get puffy. But that is generally only used when you need to increase your blood volume after an accident.
A D5W drip (essentially sugar water) moves quickly out of the veins and into the tissue and is more likely to make you puffy.
But as the previous commenter stated, that passes very quickly.
I heard about this years ago. Do you remember when “Ginger Spice” split from the Spice Girls and then dropped a lot of weight and got super skinny (Think the “It’s Raining Men” video) Well it leaked out that she was living off IV/injections of vitamins and not eating anything.
There was a report a while back in one of the British papers that it was the latest craze at London Fashion Week. These women weren’t in hospital – they were actually toting the stand and bag around with them!
I didn’t think it was just saline; the article implied it was an actual nutrient solution. But the digestive system reacts negatively to not having anything passing through it in the normal way, of course. I know someone who recently had major surgery and was on IV for a while, and when he started eating again it was some days before he could keep anything down.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any crazier…
This sounds like an urban legend to me.
I kind of agree with Cindy in that it sounds too out there to be true. But that’s Hollywood.
I’m also pretty freaked out by how fast celeb women are losing their baby weight. Women’s bodies are supposed to change, people. It’s what they do, and they do it well. The idea that women are supposed to pop out a kid and then go back to exactly how they looked before is deeply disturbing.
wow…thats seriously messed up. i dont understand how they can last like that, because the one time i was on an iv (after flying off my bike and getting a concussion when i was really little) i remember being absolutely STARVING the next day and desperately begging for bacon and eggs (despite the fact that i think bacon and eggs taste nasty). i can’t understand how anyone could actually choose to be on an IV if they didnt need it
demimonde:
remember too that some of the women in hollywood are naturally thin. when my mother had me, she dropped all the baby weight in a week – but that’s because of her metabolism. she wasn’t trying to lose weight.
that said, yeah, i don’t think ALL the celebrities losing their baby weight are doing it naturally.
I was on myspace and saw the “Amy Winehouse Diet.” it was a legitimate ad. I almost threw up looking at it.
Maybe that was the point?
Kelly Turner
http://www.groundedfitness.com
I think any person who asks to have an IV should, instead, be given a feeding tube and forced to ingest nutrients. That’s what’s gonna happen anyway, if they keep doing this crazy sh*t.
And I completely agree with Demimonde: these women who lose the baby weight 5 minutes after giving birth (and are not naturally skinny, which most aren’t) are putting their health at risk, and the health of their babies if they’re breastfeeding.
Wow.
I don’t know what else to say right at the moment.
…..
….
….
Okay here I go:
The world of fashion and celebrity should be hospitalized for a major mental illness rather than exhaustion.
I can’t believe that society in general idolizes an industry with major mental dysfunctions. Eeek!
Jacqueline Susann wrote about being put into an artificial coma to lose weight in “The Valley of the Dolls”. It’s an old concept.
@ Carolyn J – I’ve also heard of this method. I heard a story once on NPR about how Elvis used to be placed into a medically induced coma for a few days; they called it the “Sleeping Beauty Diet”.
Sheesh.
~Liz
http://www.AGiveawayADay.blogspot.com
http://www.LovingThisMomStuff.blogspot.com
http://www.JustAnotherLiz.blogspot.com
Some things just shouldn’t be done.
Wow…at a loss for words right now.
This is my first time to the site, I can’t pull myself away, your articles are great!