Just like today, weight loss regimes were big business in the 1960s. From downing all the booze you could drink to guzzling shots of oil before every meal, here are some of the craziest retro dieting tips.
All the alcohol you can drink:
One of the best-selling diet books of all time was the The Drinking Man’s Diet, which was self-published by cosmetics executive Robert Cameron in 1964 and sold 2.5 million copies in the first year. According to Cameron, slimmer could drink all the alcohol they wanted and still lose weight as long as they followed a low-carb diet. “Alcohol has calories but they’re not bad calories, they’re good calories,” he said.
Steak in a can:
One of the biggest diet crazes of all time was Metrecal, a liquid that was first developed as a baby formula before being rebranded as a meal replacement drink in 1959. Devotees were encouraged to drink four cans of the drink a day, adding up to just 900 calories. Metrecal became so popular it was even served in the White House lunch room, and popular restaurants offered the drink mixed with rum and nutmeg as part of low-cal lunch options.
Safflower oil shots:
Best-selling 60s dieting book Calories Don’t Count by Dr Herman Teller instructed slimmers to down shots of safflower oil before every meal. Teller promised that by sticking to low-carb, very-high-fat diet, followers could eat as many as 5000 calories a day and still lose weight. The book sold two million copies, despite the US Food and Drug Administration declaring its claims “false and misleading” in 1967.
Buttermilk, meat and boiled eggs:
Brooklyn GP Dr Irwin Maxwell Stillman publishing a whole book of eating plans titled The Doctor’s Quick Weight Loss Diet in 1967. One option was the buttermilk diet, which involved downing six glasses of buttermilk a day — and nothing else. A variation was the all-meat diet, which saw followers eating 225gm of meat three times a day. Stillman’s strictest eating plan was the semi-starvation diet which allowed people to eat one boiled egg, 250 of milk, 30gm of salad without dressing and eight glasses of water “for as long as you can take it”.
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