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If I've learned anything from years of watching television, it's that fat people don't deserve love. (Unless they have testicles, in which case they deserve love, a hot wife, and piping-hot buttermilk biscuits served from a tea-towel-lined basket.) I've been single since it was OK to smoke in Wendy's, and I've started to wonder if it's because I'm shaped like a Christmas tree made out of human skin.

We've just embarked on a brave new project here at Lemondrop [OMINOUS MUSIC]: getting healthy by eating better, drinking less and starting a fitness regimen called 9 to Fine. (Weight loss isn't necessarily the goal -- but getting in shape and kicking ass are. If we happen to look hotter as a side benefit, cool.) But before I did that, I tried a few ... oh, let's call them "less trainer-/nutritionist-approved" plans. (I have four weddings to go to this summer -- give me a break.)

Before we go any further, you should know that I'm a tubby single with an orca's metabolism and a medieval peasant's faith in enchanted cure-alls. I've pretty much given every insane, ludicrous, batpoop-crazy weight-loss plan a whirl. The below are the last few last-ditch weight-loss methods I tried before I agreed to bite the bullet and confront the two-headed hydra of diet and exercise.

I've rated each by effectiveness, ease and general chunk-loss. For the love of Nancy, let's get started!

The Ice Cube Diet
This diet is basically just eating frozen cubes of hoodia, which is a plant historically used as an appetite suppressant by Kalahari bushmen who use them for long hunting trips where food is scarce. The cubes are small and green, and you can chew them whole or drop them in your beverage of choice. What do they taste like? Hmm. Well, at first, it's just sort of like a mild citrus tang, but then it's followed by a quick blast of rotting meat and butt. The weird thing? These actually worked pretty well. I popped these with a green tea once or twice a day at work, and I wasn't hungry. Until I got home and I realized that Kalahari bushmen are probably very svelte because they cannot order Thai food online.
Rating: 6/10 Bikini Points

Magical Butt-Sculpting Shoes
So, you've probably seen ads for Fitflops, with their promises to make your butt look like a pair of fresh papayas, jockeying for prominence in a satin sack. I tried Skechers Tone-Ups, which are essentially platform sandals with a bunch of glitter and some kind of squishy filling. They're pretty comfortable, so I guess, in theory, they might extend the amount of time I'd usually spend traipsing around in platform sandals (to Chipotle). But they are also platform sandals with sequins. So wearing them in public was sort of like that sandwich-board scene from "Die Hard With a Vengeance." I didn't lose weight so much as gain a lingering sense of paranoia that people were judging me for wearing fatty shoes.
Rating: 4/10 Bikini Points


Poverty
I've been broke, and I was down to whatever was in my fridge (leftover takeout, the healthy things that I ignore in favor of takeout) and $40 in my checking account. Knowing that I might need that $40 for important things like bottles of malt liquor and emergency room co-pays, I decided that I was only allowed to eat what was in my apartment. This amounted to a few servings of leftover gazpacho, a bag of spinach, some lemons, some cashews, a few eggs, and some strawberries. Guess what, guys? The Poverty Diet works really well if you don't cheat. For the first couple of days, I was forced to eat really healthily against my will. Eventually I caved and charged a pizza to my credit card, but a stronger person with no Visa could probably do really well on this. (If you're some kind of Richie Rich or you're just generally good with money, you can achieve the same effect by just buying healthy groceries at the beginning of the week and not letting yourself buy more until the end of it.)
Rating: 7/10 Bikini Points

Drunkorexia
A while back, I read this awesome article in The New York Times about how the fashion elite stay so thin by eating next to nothing and drinking their calories. Sounds great! I love alcohol and not being fat! So a few weeks back, when I knew I had to attend several sauce-soaked events for Internet Week (which is sort of the Fashion Week for chubs and uggos) and then had a spate of birthday parties, I figured I'd use this mandatory fortnight of liver punishment as a proving grounds for this particular diet. Could I survive off of nothing but cocktails and sundry accoutrements? Sadly, as has been noted, alcohol tends to give one a raging case of the drunchies. It doesn't matter if it's wine or a vodka soda or a stout -- after about three drinks, I'm talking about the Venus of Willendorf and practicing saying "two slices of double-cheese, sir" without slurring. Yeah, I call the pizza guy sir when I'm drunk, wanna fight?
Rating: 3/10 Bikini Points

Depression
Remember those four weddings I mentioned? That's four plus-ones, my friends, which for me translates to four conspicuous opportunities to appear alone and repulsive to men before my assembled friends/family. If that far-off depression weren't bad enough, my best dude and I had a gigundor fight, my 90-year-old grandma was mad at me, oh, and as previously mentioned, I'm pretty much sculpted out of butter. You know how awesome depression is as an appetite suppressant? I mean, I know there are people who go the other way, but for me, there's nothing like a little despondency to turn me off of takeout for weeks at a go. I figure as long as I continue to be anathema to men and wait longer than a week to cash my grandmother's checks, I can keep my BMI at a low roar.
Rating: 8/10 Bikini Points

Sleeping With Somebody More Attractive Than You
This diet is amazing. Not only do you burn calories during sex, having it with somebody with visible abdominal muscles will really shame you into hitting the gym. Every time this dude told me I was "really smart," I lost the urge to eat a cheeseburger. Seriously, I urge you to hook up out of your league. As a weight-loss tool, insecurity is better than meth and liposculpture combined.
Rating: 10/10 Bikini Points

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Julieanne Smolinskiis Lemondrop's Articles Editor. She likes Twitter, pornography and alienating men.