Oddity Central |
- Using Nose Feeding Tubes Becomes Trendy Lose-Weight-Fast Diet
- Who Needs Money, Beautiful People Travel Free
- Playing on the World’s Most Dangerous Golf Course Can Literally Kill You
- Photographer Captures Beauty of Crystal Clear Swiss River from 50 Feet Deep
| Using Nose Feeding Tubes Becomes Trendy Lose-Weight-Fast Diet Posted: 27 Apr 2012 05:14 AM PDT
It's truly disturbing when doctors come up with seemingly fad diets that could prove dangerous, but that appears to be happening all the time and most of them are also pretty successful. The latest to join the trend is an American doctor who is providing a drastic and quick weight-loss method, the K-E Diet. It involves putting food into your body through the nose, using a dripping tube. The K-E diet stands for Ketogenic Enteral Nutrition diet and is the work of Dr. Oliver di Pietro, from Florida. He promises to help anyone shed 20 lb in as little as 10 days. As a part of the diet, dieters have to get a small nasogastric tube inserted into their nose going all the way to the stomach, through which a liquid solution drips constantly. The solution supposedly contains a mix of protein, fat and water and makes up 800 calories. A few hours of this and a process called ketosis is said to be triggered, which burns body fat due to the lack of carbohydrates. The fat is burned but the muscle and water in the body remain untouched. Dieters who want to achieve the best results aren't supposed to eat anything for a period of 10 days and also have to carry around the bag of nutritious fluid everywhere they go.
What about hunger? Dr. Di Pietro has an answer for that, "Within a few hours, your hunger and appetite go away completely, so patients are actually not hungry for the whole 10 days. That's what so amazing about this diet." I'd also like to add that that's what so unnatural about this diet. Aren't hunger and appetite a part of a normal, healthy person's life? But the doctor seems unfazed by such thoughts. He's very happy with the results the K-E diet has brought about. "Patients typically burn around 2 pounds of fat per day. In every 100,000 patients I treated in Europe, nearly every one lost 20 lbs in 10 days. It's absolutely painless – the stage of ketosis causes no pain. In fact, during the ketosis stage you feel no hunger and have a suppressed appetite." Of course, after the diet is completed one needs to continue on a low carb diet to maintain the loss, he points out. So far, the diet has become very popular among brides-to-be, who are desperate to lose all those extra pounds before their big day.
Naturally, the K-E diet has got a few people concerned over the health hazard that it poses. According to nutritionist Suzy Weems, from Baylor University, eating through the nose could certainly cause long-term health damage. "It seems very extreme because of its potential for infections and irritations. It seems to be illogical to do this for one fairy-tale day when most brides have plenty of time before their wedding to lose weight the healthy way. The long-term solution to maintain a good weight is to eat right and exercise," she says. Dr. Di Pietro does accept that there are some side effects to the diet, minor ones such as bad breath and constipation because there is no fiber in the food, but I suppose being constipated for 10 days is worth it if it means being able to slip into that dream dress on the wedding day.
Jessica Schnaider has tried it for her upcoming June wedding because she was desperate for a quick fix. But even though she was not hungry, she says the diet was by no means easy. "It was emotionally difficult, the 10 days of not eating. And I had to give excuses to people who were asking me if I was sick." Jessica had to compliment the diet with a half hour of walking every day, but she was too tired to do that, which isn't surprising in the least.
At $1,500 per 10 days the K-E diet sure is expensive, but the doctor says the before and after pictures talk for themselves about the results. Would you spend that much to lose weight and probably put your health at risk? via Huffington Post Using Nose Feeding Tubes Becomes Trendy Lose-Weight-Fast Diet was originally posted at OddityCentral.com |
| Who Needs Money, Beautiful People Travel Free Posted: 27 Apr 2012 04:49 AM PDT
Misstravel.com is a creative new website that hooks up beautiful women with rich men. It's essentially a dating service, but only meant for the wealthy and the attractive. Once registered, good looking women can go on a trip with generous rich men, who will, of course, take care of all the expenses. Registering at misstravel.com is absolutely free. You could sign up either as an Attractive Traveler or a Generous Traveler. The former obviously gets to travel for free and the latter pays for the trip. According to the website, an Attractive Traveler account is meant for "beautiful people who want to travel for free" and the Generous Traveler option is for "generous members who are seeking to travel with a beautiful companion, and who are willing to pay for all travel expenses." The Generous Travelers also need to pay the website when they decide to make communication with an Attractive Traveler.
Once a GT meets and AT and wishes to propose a travel, one of three options can be selected. Travel with Me: meant for finding someone to travel with you to a new destination; Come to Me: if you wish for someone to travel to your home city; Show Me Your Town: If you want to visit someone at his/her home city. Whatever the type of travel, at misstravel.com the rule is that the GT needs to bear all the travel expenses at all times. And the people who sign up for travel partners are supposedly doctors, lawyers, bankers, athletes, executives, entrepreneurs and executives. Of course, there seem to be several things wrong with the type of dating model the website provides. For starters, it's very difficult to believe that this isn't an escort service in disguise. Several people have tweeted that misstravel.com is nothing short of prostitution. But website founder Brandon Wade is very quick to dismiss all these concerns. "Escorts are bad for the dating business," he says. "They destroy the experience. If a guy comes to a site that's advertised a dating site and finds escorts, he's going to be turned off by that." And yet, escorts do create profiles on misstravel.com, just as they have on Wade's previous ventures – SeekingArrangement.com and WhatsYourPrice.com. He says that he spends a lot of money removing escorts from all his businesses and 20 to 30 escorts are kicked out each day. MissTravel.com does, however, promise luxury vacations that are spent at "five-star resorts and dinner at top-rated restaurants." Put an attractive woman and a rich man together in such environments, and I guess I don't need to tell you what the expectations are. Which is why people view this as a type of escort service.
Another major problem posed by MissTravel.com is safety. It's not exactly one of the best ideas to be trudging off half way across the world with a complete stranger. There is a full section on the website dedicated to travel safety tips and advice. The first point on the list is, "Never travel out of the country or to a different city to meet someone you do not know well." But that is kind of against the whole point of the website, isn't it?
So far, we don't really know if there have been any successful trips from this website since it's all pretty new. According to Wade the site has over 16,000 members, but he hopes to know more about the actual vacations in the next few weeks. We just hope that anyone who uses the website manages to stay safe. As they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch. In the past, we featured a similar controversial French dating site that allows people to rent a girlfriend. via ABC News Who Needs Money, Beautiful People Travel Free was originally posted at OddityCentral.com |
| Playing on the World’s Most Dangerous Golf Course Can Literally Kill You Posted: 27 Apr 2012 04:24 AM PDT
Playing golf at Camp Bonifas in South Korea can prove dangerous in more ways than one. After all, it is notorious for being the most dangerous golf course in the world. What's the worst thing that can happen, you ask? Well, you could get blown up to smithereens, for one. The deadly golf course is pretty small at 192 yards, but it feels like a good 250 yards. The place is flanked by military style bunkers on the right, and on the left side, separated by an 18-foot high security fence topped by concertina wire, lie buried countless unexploded mines. Even a small mistake could cause a huge, fatal explosion. A nearby sign warns players, "Danger. Do not retrieve balls from the rough. Live mine fields."
Photo: Drew Gallagher/ESPN Camp Bonifas got its name in 1976, in honor of Capt. Arthur Bonifas who was killed over a dispute with North Korean soldiers. It was built in 1972 as an emotional outlet for the 50 American soldiers stationed in the area at a lonely outpost. With no theaters or restaurants, they had no option but to convert the deadly area into a golf course. While it was being built, the commanders figured out that even though it wasn't possible to fit in all 18 holes in the limited area, they could compensate by making the game difficult. So they created a layout slicing through dense trees, with a fairway that is only 40 yards wide. The result is pretty simple according to Sgt. James Meisenheimer, a 23-year-old from Kansas, "Most golf holes would get boring if you played them again and again. This one doesn't." But if you think the live land mines are the only scary thing about Camp Bonifas, you're sadly mistaken. Over the years, the camp has been shrouded by scary rumors and sightings. They say that if you play alone, you can see and experience weird things. This includes seeing animals like wild boars, Korean tigers, vampire deers and even a bizarre creature some men refer to as a “man-bear-pig”. You'll just have to imagine what that looks like.
The golf course was very well maintained in the years when more than 700 soldiers were stationed there. The fairway was mowed almost daily and always kept green. But it soon turned into a cow pasture when the number of men and military budgets dwindled. Very recently, a few soldiers got together and decided to do something about Camp Bonifas. The course was given a face-lift and construction crews were brought in to clear up the sand traps. A riding lawnmower was shipped in from the US and Astroturf installed on the tee box and green. The soldiers now hope they can get Tiger Woods to come play there, so they will raise enough money to do an even better job. Meanwhile, the soldiers are still having a great time on the course. As Army Sgt. Mikel Thurman says, "It's like a Zen garden where we hit little white balls." Source: LA Times Playing on the World’s Most Dangerous Golf Course Can Literally Kill You was originally posted at OddityCentral.com |
| Photographer Captures Beauty of Crystal Clear Swiss River from 50 Feet Deep Posted: 27 Apr 2012 01:25 AM PDT
The Verzasca River, in Switzerland, is known all over the world for its clear, turquoise waters, but until now its beauty had only been captured from the surface. Photographer Claudio Gazzaroli decided to change that, so he put on a diving suit, took his waterproof camera and dived onto the riverbed to take some truly mind-blowing photos. The 30-km-long Verzasca mountain river originates at Pizzo Barone and flows into Lake Maggiore, in Italy. The river valley is located in the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland and is a popular tourist destination. People come from all around the globe to see the turquoise waters of Verzasca, do scuba-diving and admire its vibrant colored rocks. Most of them prefer to take photos of Verzasca from the mountains that surround it or from the many bridges built over it. But photographer Claudio Gazzaroli wanted to offer a different perspective on this unique wonder of nature. He dived town 50 feet to the bottom of Verzasca and managed to capture the almost unearthly clarity of its waters. ‘I wanted to show the beauty of this place in a new way,’ Gazzaroli said. Looking at his work, one wonders why wee need software like Photoshop when Mother Nature seems to do thing better herself.
Photo: Claudio Gazzaroli These photos look absolutely amazing, but do you notice anything strange about them? Where are all the fish and marine plants that usually live in mountain rivers like Verzasca? Apparently there are none… I read somewhere that the high transparency of the river water is caused by high acidity, which also makes it impossible for any organisms to thrive there. So while Verzasca River may be a great place to take surreal photographs, it’s basically dead, and that makes it a little to creepy for me. That’s pretty strange, right? Although I known there’s nothing living in the river to be afraid of, that thought alone scares me even more… Photo: Claudio Gazzaroli If you like this kind of underwater photography, you might want to take a peek at the pics of this unique diving destination that doubles as a hiking spot.
Photographer Captures Beauty of Crystal Clear Swiss River from 50 Feet Deep was originally posted at OddityCentral.com |
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