Would you fast every other day if it meant quickly dropping pounds?

Or is eating a live worm more your style?

Better yet, why would you ever even ask yourself these questions in the first place? Because it's Crazy New Diet Time, whoopee!

The holidays are here, and that means Diet Season is nearly upon us. Last year, the Cookie Diet took the nation by storm, a regimen that involved munching prepackaged "cookies" multiple times a day and eating only one meal (the plan was so low in calories that it was compared to the nutritional intake of a refugee in Darfur).

But, of course, the founder of the plan made mad money, and the batty nutritionists, loony PhDs and desperate dieters of the world are already clamoring for the next big skinny thing.

First, there's the "alternate day" diet. According to a new study (albeit one using an incredibly small group of people), it's possible to lose weight quickly by fasting every other day. Apparently, by eating 500 calories one day and then eating "normally" the next, it's possible to lose 1.5 lbs. per week. Doesn't sound too bad -- we forget to eat half the time anyway.

But why intermittently starve yourself when you could be eating as much as you want and lose weight at a frighteningly fast rate? That's what Tyra recently discussed on her show in a segment on the increasing popularity of the "tapeworm diet," which has people spending thousands of dollars to purchase and eat a live parasite, which then hangs out in your intestines and keeps you from absorbing calories from the foods you eat. As enticing as it might sound not to exercise or watch what you eat, bear in mind that the worm can get unbelievably large and travel to other parts of your body. Oh, and then there's the whole malnutrition part -- the tapeworm also eats all of the vitamins you'd normally get from food, leaving you thin AND depleted.

Oh, diet world, when will you come up with something sensible for us? Something like "smaller portions of healthy food"? As if that would work. Pfffffffffffft.