{"id":331,"date":"2013-11-26T10:00:23","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.osfsaintanthony.org\/blog\/?p=331"},"modified":"2013-11-26T10:00:23","modified_gmt":"2013-11-26T16:00:23","slug":"the-surprising-way-people-are-using-cotton-balls-to-lose-weight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/osf-blog.live.imagescape.com\/blog\/the-surprising-way-people-are-using-cotton-balls-to-lose-weight\/","title":{"rendered":"The Surprising Way People Are Using Cotton Balls to Lose Weight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-345\" alt=\"Cotton balls on blue\" src=\"https:\/\/osf-blog.live.imagescape.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/iStock_000006149142XSmall.jpg\" width=\"198\" height=\"297\" \/>The \u201ccotton ball diet\u201d has been sweeping social media as a new fad for weight loss. The diet consists of eating cotton balls to fill up your stomach to keep you from feeling hungry. Because there are virtually no calories, many believe this will help them lose weight.<\/p>\n<p>The cotton ball diet might seem harmless, but it can be very dangerous. The cotton balls can cause a blockage in your intestines that can cause pain and can potentially lead to a stay in the hospital if the blockage is severe.<\/p>\n<p>Besides the fact that eating cotton balls can be dangerous, there is no nutritional value to them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Safe Alternative<\/strong><br \/>\nTrying to not feel hungry when dieting is nothing new; however, there are healthier ways to accomplish this. The best way is a diet called volumetrics.<\/p>\n<p>Volumetrics calls for eating low calorie foods, such as fruits and non-starchy vegetables*, in high quantities in order to fill up your stomach and not leave room for high calorie, low volume foods, such as cake, cookies, fried meats, high fat cheeses, etc. For example, a cup of raw broccoli is loaded with vitamins and minerals but only has 25 calories, while one ounce of fried chicken is more than 100 calories.<\/p>\n<p>Eating five to nine servings (half a cup on average) of fruits and non-starchy vegetables would be a much safer and healthier alternative to the cotton ball diet, and you\u2019d still achieve similar results.<\/p>\n<p>*Note: Non-starchy vegetables would exclude potatoes, corn, peas and beans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The \u201ccotton ball diet\u201d has been sweeping social media as a new fad for weight loss. The diet consists of eating cotton balls to fill up your stomach to keep you from feeling hungry. Because there are virtually no calories, many believe this will help them lose weight. The cotton ball diet might seem harmless, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[30],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diet-exercise","tag-weight-loss"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Surprising Way People Are Using Cotton Balls to Lose Weight<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The \u201ccotton ball diet\u201d has been sweeping social media as a new fad for weight loss. Is it healthy for you?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/osf-blog.live.imagescape.com\/blog\/the-surprising-way-people-are-using-cotton-balls-to-lose-weight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Surprising Way People Are Using Cotton Balls to Lose Weight\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The \u201ccotton ball diet\u201d has been sweeping social media as a new fad for weight loss. Is it healthy for you?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/osf-blog.live.imagescape.com\/blog\/the-surprising-way-people-are-using-cotton-balls-to-lose-weight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"OSF HealthCare Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/osfhealthcare\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-11-26T16:00:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/osf-blog.live.imagescape.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Blog-OG.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"627\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nathan Hamman, MS, RD, LDN\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@osfhealthcare\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@osfhealthcare\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nathan Hamman, MS, RD, LDN\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/osf-blog.live.imagescape.com\/blog\/the-surprising-way-people-are-using-cotton-balls-to-lose-weight\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/osf-blog.live.imagescape.com\/blog\/the-surprising-way-people-are-using-cotton-balls-to-lose-weight\/\",\"name\":\"The Surprising Way People Are Using Cotton Balls to Lose Weight\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/osf-blog.live.imagescape.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/osf-blog.live.imagescape.com\/blog\/the-surprising-way-people-are-using-cotton-balls-to-lose-weight\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/osf-blog.live.imagescape.com\/blog\/the-surprising-way-people-are-using-cotton-balls-to-lose-weight\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/osf-blog.live.imagescape.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/iStock_000006149142XSmall.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-11-26T16:00:23+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/osf-blog.live.imagescape.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/468fb66a918a3a330dfa32f8204706fb\"},\"description\":\"The \u201ccotton ball diet\u201d has been sweeping social media as a new fad for weight loss. 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