We've all heard about calorie counting, but this restrictive diet was around long before calories were a thing. Written by Italian nobleman Luigi Cornaro.
In the 18th century it was believed that covering your body in hot sand would make you sweat more, and therefore lose fat. As we now know, it’s actually only water and salts that are lost through sweat.
British poet and politician Lord Byron apparently lost a signficant amount of weight between 1806-11, surviving on a diet of biscuits, soda water and large quantities of vinegar.
Wholewheat Graham flour is named after Reverend Sylvester Graham, who was an advocate of temperance and vegetarianism.
Replacing two meals a day with a bowl of Special K cereal was a diet phenomenon in the early 2000s, but the cereal diet dates back much further.
American dietician Horace Fletcher became known as the 'Great Masticator' thanks to his belief that chewing food for 100 bites per minute would result in weight loss.
Bernarr Macfadden was an American body builder who advocated consuming nothing but eight to 12 pints of milk per day for peak fitness.
Swedish Artic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson belived that a high calorie diet of whale blubber, caribou and raw fish was the best, because the Inuit who lived on this diet were slim and healthy.
SWIPE UP FOR MORE AMAZING STORIES