Hey guys, it's Tyen.
So all of you know that I have this morbid curiosity for diet fads
and I'm down to try almost anything.
And for today's episode, I'm gonna be trying something a bit more extreme than usual
and that is the k-pop idol diet.
So I went online to see what the k-pop diet entails and I realise there's just so
many different types of diets according to the different celebrities.
But something I realise about all of them is that they seem pretty extreme!
So out of all the different k-pop idol diets I found out there, there was one that really
caught my attention and that was IU's diet.
Her diet is pretty much 1 apple for breakfast, 1 sweet potato for lunch
and 1 protein shake for dinner.
And I'm looking at the diet and thinking how does one sustain on this diet
especially her because she's a k-pop idol, she probably has dance rehearsals, singing
rehearsals and has to go for all these concerts, how does she sustain with
this kind of diet? And for myself I'm thinking you know I'll lead a pretty
active lifestyle, can I possibly sustain with the same amount of calories and eat
so little? That's why I decided to try it for myself so I'm gonna vlog and bring
you guys along my crash diet.
It is day 1 of the k-pop diet and I am on my way to work.
I have not eaten anything but I want to make sure that when I have that
apple, that sweet potato and that protein shake, it's gonna be a damn good one!
After work I'm gonna pick up my apple
and I'm gonna make it a really nice and juicy one.
I try not to eat fruit in the morning, I don't know if you guys have
experienced this before but when I eat a lot of sugar in the morning and a lot of
fruit in the morning, I actually get a bit hungrier but this is a really
yummy apple and I'm glad it's part of my diet,
I'm gonna finish eating this and then head out for my meeting.
I'm on my way back home.
I swear towards like the last 10 minutes of that meeting,
I thought I was going to black out because I felt so hungry already
so I'm on my way back to eat my second meal which is a sweet potato.
I don't know how much that's going to satiate me,
I'm looking forward to it because I love sweet potatoes
but I really don't know how much that's gonna keep me full.
I have made myself my lunch, this is my purple sweet potato.
So I actually went online and went to go and see how other people do the IU diet
and their sweet potatoes look significantly larger so I
decided to make myself another sweet potato
even though it's just like a little tiny one.
I'm gonna enjoy my sweet potato, get back to doing some work
and then check in on a bit later in the afternoon.
I just felt this massive energy slum I was so tired and sleepy,
I just decided to crash in bed and I only woke up another 2 hours later,
so no, it's an unproductive day.
And I'm glad that I'm not working out today, today is like a rest day for me
so I'm just a bit worried to see how I would function
given that I don't have a lot of energy from foods,
hopefully I have enough energy reserved to push me through a workout when I have
to tomorrow but as of now all I can say is that I just feel very sleepy.
The final meal of the day is going to be a protein shake.
I feel that you know with dieting, sometimes it's not so much of the food itself
it's just like the social element of it.
For example when I have date night, this person is going to bring me somewhere very nice,
the last thing I want to do is to go, "Oh sorry I'm only eating a sweet potatoes and apples for my diet."
but you know what, I am determined to see this diet through,
I do crazy things for the love of my channel and my show.
It is day 2 on the k-pop diet and I have not eaten anything today.
Usually on my Saturday mornings, I pack my clients back-to-back
so I was just training non-stop. I think because I also knew I
was on this diet, I tried not to eat too early in the day because I feel once you
start eating your metabolism starts going so I try not to eat so early today
so I can spread out my calories when I'm the most exhausting which is probably
gonna be later today. I didn't feel super hungry this morning.
Honestly I was running on coffee the entire time.
This is my third cup this morning
so I guess I'm just running on caffeine but I feel like the hunger pang
might kick in a bit later on but I have my apple with me,
I'm gonna have this is my first meal of the day.
So far how I feel in terms of how I look, I do feel thinner.
I think just because I feel more hollow, I didn't eat much yesterday so I guess
the initial feeling was just to feel thinner.
Just in general, this diet doesn't even seem it fills anybody up.
I mean I don't know how an apple and sweet potatoes and a protein shake is suppose to fill...
I mean that's under 500 calories
which is pretty much a starvation calorie diet if you ask me.
I know that earlier today I was saying that I am unfettered by this diet
but to be honest after you have eaten 1 apple,
you've gotten your sugar in and your body starts to crave for more food
and that's what I'm doing right now.
This is what I have for lunch today, a sweet potato.
I am done filming a little story time for my personal YouTube channel
and I am feeling famished.
I would say though that on day 2 of my diet I have been getting very good bowel
movements which is pretty strange because I'm thinking you know I'm not eating
that much food, I'm only eating like an apple and a sweet potato and a protein
shake and I'm eliminating a lot of meat in my diet.
Meat perhaps could be the result of a lot of constipation and bloating issues that I
experience on a day-to-day. But overall it's been okay
I just have to deal with very serious hunger pangs.
So it is the end of day 2 on the k-pop diet and I
can say that I already feel skinnier so I think there's a huge psychological
effect of this diet whereby because you're eating so little, you do feel a
lot lighter, yeah you don't get the same kind of bloating you would after you
eat a huge meal and it's just been 2 days of eating less and you feel
skinnier. And I can totally see why people will be addicted to wanting to do it
on a daily basis.
So it is now day 3 on my k-pop diet.
I just finished training my Sunday morning clients and I'm now at my
grandma's house, going to have my Sunday afternoon lunch,
which I do every single Sunday when I visit them. Unfortunately I forgot
to tell her that I'm on this crazy k-pop diet. I am not feeling very tired or very
lethargic but I would say that I could use with a lot more calories because I
just know that my body functions much better when I have eaten enough food and
I have the right amount calories in order for me to expand my energy.
Personal training is a very emotionally and energetically expensive service so I
want to be able to have the amount of calories and energy so that I can give
that to my clients and I feel it without that energy, I'm unable to do so and I'm
just running on a lot of caffeine. So I would like to be able to eat more so
that I can you know train them with even more intensity and to also work out with
even more and see for myself.
I just completed a workout on my app and
overall i feel very sweaty, very gas out and I am a bit dizzy and
sleepy and tired because I hadn't had enough food just makes me understand how hard
it must be to get up and actually do a workout if you don't eat enough calories
and I know I could have pushed a lot harder had I eaten more calories.
For dinner I have a protein shake.
To be honest I'm getting really sick and tired of IU's diet,
it's so boring and there's no variety
and it's so minimal. I really don't like feeling hungry, I don't like feeling weak
and that was completely how I felt just now when I tried to work out at my grandmother's place.
I honestly don't know how long more of this diet I can take.
It is day 4 of the k-pop diet.
Needless to say I feel like crap.
I don't feel motivated to go to the gym now, I know I do have to workout and I
should work out so I'm gonna eat a pre-workout snack, my apple
and then go and train.
So I'm done with my leg and abs workout and I definitely think that
my diet has not served me well because I feel very tired. I think also because
psychologically I know that I haven't eaten enough over the past few days and
I just want to conserve my energy so that is making me not want to push as hard but
I'm still trying to like psych myself into pushing and finishing out this
workout so that's what I'm gonna do.
So I'm halfway through day four on the k-pop diet
and I've gotta say that this is definitely not working out for me
because I've only had an apple today and I've just been sitting here, trying to
get some work done but been feeling very distracted because my stomach is
growling. So I went online to do a bit of research about the k-pop diet and there
are just a couple of guidelines that a lot of Korean superstars follow when it
comes to this k-pop diet. So one of them is that it's lower fat. A lot of the
Korean cuisine actually avoid fried and heavy fat meals and they mainly steam
their foods on this diet. There's also minimally processed foods
in the kpop diet. No sugar. K-pop stars stay away from high sugary beverages,
sugary snacks and again it's very heavy in vegetables. Things like bibimbap
that has a lot of variety of vegetables. There's also an emphasis on more chicken
and fish and less red meat. Soy-rich food again like tofu, edamame. So in a nutshell
the k-pop diet is pretty similar to how I would normally eat already which is to
have minimally processed foods, a lot of lean meat, high amount of protein,
vegetables and you know I think that if you also just compare Korean diets to
the let's say the Western diets, the portion sizing is just a lot smaller for
Korean diet so perhaps that could be a reason why you can stay healthy
and also portion control and lose weight on a Korean diet. I think that all
diets when taken to an extreme level is unhealthy for you. Especially when these
are diets promoted by your idols, you want to look like that so you know you
have this misconception that this diet works long-term when as a matter of fact,
it probably is only used for instances where they really need to lose a lot of
weight for a role in a show or an appearance or for a photo shoot so yeah,
definitely, not a sustainable diet to be eating so little. Today for lunch I
actually got myself a healthy Korean bowl. I'm just going to fill myself up
because if not, I am going to faint and I have driving after this.
I'm not gonna take any risk.
I am back from my driving class and that was a pretty intense
driving session. I feel as though I should have eaten a lot more before
because I couldn't concentrate and towards the end I remember feeling very
agitated with my driving instructor, okay granted he is a bit of an irritant.
I just wanted to get out of the car so badly that I left in a rush and I left my
wallet in the car so I'm annoyed and a bit emotional and a
bit frustrated at myself because I shouldn't be leaving my stuff around and
I was just a bit muddle-headed. Yeah I'm actually slightly emotional right now, I don't know why.
I want to scream, I'm so mad at myself right now.
I'm gonna go and get some food
and eat proper food because I'm not just gonna survive on a protein shake.
I'm gonna eat proper food and I think I'm gonna feel a lot better.
So it is day 5 on my k-pop diet. I don't particularly as energised as usual.
I did have an apple for my breakfast because I just wanted to continue the diet so I can give
even more feedback, maybe there's something about eating an apple every
morning that is good for overall health and well-being but I would like to eat
something more substantial for breakfast than just an apple. So I have a driving
test right after this. I know for a fact that I'm not going to starve myself and go
there without the clarity of mind so I'm gonna be eating my egg, oats, all
healthy and I think that this is the correct fuel that I should be eating in
order to power me through a very intense driving test because I want to be sharp.
Okay so I've come to the end of day 5 of the Korean diet.
I essentially broke my diet today and I
don't think that I can last another day on IU's diet because I was feeling
physically weak, really irritable and kind of brain foggy so overall I think
this just goes to show that what you eat doesn't just affect your appearance and
your energy levels, but it also affects your mood and your mental clarity and I
don't think I want to last another day on this diet, I won't recommend it to
anybody and I'm just really glad that is over.
So after trying out this diet,
I can completely understand when people start going on these crash diets and they lose
this significant amount of weight within the first week or first few days even,
I can imagine how addictive that must be for them because you know when you start
eating less calories, just generally your body is gonna be purging itself of its
water weight, you're gonna feel lighter obviously, you feel skinnier on your face,
you feel skinnier on your body, it's a very like psychological thing. But at the same
time I think that there's a lot of danger in just following these diets,
especially for younger people who are looking up to these k-pop idols and
thinking that you know this is a normal diet and totally like normalises eating
such low calories for all these celebrities and that can lead to a slippery slope, it
can result in many eating disorders and health issues which I do not want for you.
And I want to tell everybody who looks up to their celebrities and their
idols, to you know still practice wisdom when it comes to dieting. Realise that we
don't lead the same lifestyle and for that reason, it's just not sustainable
for you. And in general I'm just a huge advocate for
eating a healthy and balanced diet. We've done a lot of videos on healthy diet
tips and also healthy meals that you can prepare for yourself so you can go and
check those out. And of course you know that with a healthy diet you also
need to supplement it with exercise and if you're looking to kickstart your
fitness journey go and download the "No Sweat" fitness app. You'll get
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