We Tried It: The Baby Food Diet

The other day my friend and personal trainer extraordinaire, Terri Walsh, emailed me to ask if I knew anything about the "Baby Food Diet." Although this lose-weight-quick fad diet has been around for a while, it piqued my interest because it is reportedly promoted by Tracy Anderson's Hollywood studio, the same source that blessed us with the questionable treadmill dancing craze I reviewed in a recent Fit or Fiction column.

Sometimes the best way to get understand diet and exercise trends is to try them on for size. Although the idea of eating puréed pears is enticing, consuming only jars of baby food for a whole day is quite another matter. So, here is a blow-by-blow of what it's like to scarf down only baby food all day long, followed by my professional opinion of its worth as a weight loss method.

7:05 a.m. The first thing I realize is that coffee and baby food do not mix. Parents, don't give this to your kids.

As the diet outlines, I have purchased 14 servings of prepackaged baby food. There were a lot of brands and versions to choose from, but I finally settle on Gerber Graduates because, well, I went to graduate school. It occurs to me that this is a pricey way to eat. A few supermarket aisles over, I look for the most expensive jar of applesauce with the same ingredients as the baby applesauce and confirm the baby version is about 30 percent more costly per ounce. The kiddie sauce has been run through the blender a few more times -- but still.

8:15 a.m. I realize I may have made a mistake by buying all fruit flavors. They are surprisingly sweet, like eating a pack of Life Savers in every spoonful. I knew enough to avoid the prune flavor based on a biohazard-diaper situation I remember from when my daughter was a baby -- but the non-fruit types all looked and sounded so disgusting. I couldn't bring myself to buy anything the color of the mashed sweet peas. And the pasta dinner? Yuck. I barely choke down the peach cobbler.

8:45 a.m. Out doing an errand, I pass a pizza parlor, two bread shops, a deli and a sushi restaurant. All places that sell things you can chew.

10:17 a.m. I forgot to weigh myself before I started. I figure I can measure progress by how my tightest pants fit. I try the pear and strawberry granola and it is worse than the peach. Cloying and gritty. I can't finish the package.

11:32 a.m. Turns out the prunes aren't the only flavor that result in a biohazard situation. The three containers have run through me like Olympic sprinters.

11:34 a.m. Do iced tea and baby food mix?

11:35 a.m. Think I can save the little containers for bug collections when the weather gets warmer.

11:36 a.m. Getting close to lunchtime. Is it cheating to crumble up some turkey into the mango?

12:00 p.m. I force down two containers of cherry and banana. This is the sweetest flavor yet. Did my pancreas just twitch? I check the packaging and see there is white grape juice concentrate listed as an ingredient. This is a code word for sugar. No wonder kids grow up craving cookies and candy.

12:33 p.m. I email Terri to ask about the turkey. She replies by telling me she had a chicken curry sandwich for lunch. Surmise that yes, turkey is cheating.

12.45 p.m. Eat a container of the mango and banana.

1:47 p.m. Hunger headache starting. Slightly dizzy. I eat a container of applesauce and wonder about the Hollywood actresses and other professionally skinny people who diet like this on a regular basis. No wonder they say dumb things in the media.

2:04 p.m. For moral support, I tweet a few of my Twitter buddies and a couple of them offer to join in. I think about eating another container but can't bear the thought of how it will taste. I am falling behind the recommended pace.

3:25 p.m. At this point, I have to eat something, so I try the blueberry yogurt. It isn't as sweet as the others, but the texture is nasty, like mashed cat food. It coats my tongue in the most unspeakable way. Seriously. I can't speak.

4:30 p.m. It's early in the day, I know. But -- do wine and baby food mix? I need something to keep my mind off of the hunger. My husband and daughter have just come home with pizza. It smells so good I actually start hallucinating. Is it cheating if you puree a slice of pizza? I now have a serious headache.

4:33 p.m. So she will stop eating pizza, I ask my daughter to try a spoonful of the baby food. She makes a face and shakes her head. This from a recently former baby. Then she asks me if I must drink from a baby bottle, too. Headache intensifying.

4:57 p.m. My husband waves a slice of pizza under my nose and I am done. I grab it from him and suck it down in about three bites. I wish I could have lasted longer, but I don't think I am a very good dieter, or at least not a very good baby food dieter. Truly, I would rather not eat anything at all than take another bite of that stuff. I will donate the nine left over containers to the local food bank.

So, the bottom line: If you stick with it for a day or two, you absolutely will shed weight as promised. But there's no magic here, since 14 servings of baby food equal approximately 1,000 calories, which would result in weight loss no matter how you arrived there. The pre-measured, prepackaged servings are just a twist on the concept of portion control. Baby food is also low fat with few food additives. These are not bad things, but believe me, there are healthier -- and tastier -- ways to eat. As an alternative, you could buy a kitchen scale and organic low-fat foods. Unless you are trying to get down to your original weight of seven pounds, four ounces, I would skip this diet.

What do you think? Have you tried this diet too? Post a comment here or tweet me your thoughts @lizzyfit.

See how another That's Fit writer fared following each of Dr. Oz's 10 commandments for weight loss over a 10-day period.