In 2006, a man from Iran named Gholamreza Ardeshiri decided to stop eating food. Instead, he started relying only on sweetened fizzy drinks for energy. Ever since then, the 58-year-old claims to have survived on only water and fizzy drinks like Pepsi and Coca-Cola. He’s now been doing this for a continuous period of 17 years.
The change in his diet began when he woke up one night in 2006 with a strange feeling in his mouth that never went away, even after visiting multiple doctors.
Eventually, he chose to completely avoid eating and has been leading a normal life ever since. Whenever his family eats in front of him, he feels sick, so they avoid doing so. Ardeshiri consumes three large bottles of soda daily and insists that he never feels hungry.
“I had a strange feeling, I felt like an object like hair was inside my mouth, I felt that the head of this hair was inside my mouth and the end was inside my stomach, no matter what I did, it was not possible to remove this hair,” Ardeshiri recalled about the night he first felt that funny feeling in his mouth. “It was like the hair was tugging in my throat and I felt like I was suffocating, it was so tight that I didn’t know what to do. I can’t really describe it, but it felt crazy.”
Gholamreza Ardeshiri tried visiting different doctors, but none of them could figure out what was wrong with him. Even though there was no hair in his mouth, he constantly felt like there was. Some people suggested he see a psychiatrist, but that didn’t help much either. Frustrated, he made the decision to stop eating food altogether and rely only on soda.
According to Ardeshiri, the first time he drank soda, he felt a surge of energy like never before. That’s when he decided to make it his substitute for food.
Although he has said that he has experienced no major health problems since following this diet, he has lost a total of 32 kilos.
Even after being aware of all the risks that come with constantly and regularly consuming fizzy drinks full of sugar, the man undergoes regular health check-ups and just to confirm that he is indeed healthy, he has had an endoscopy.
He mostly drinks these sugary beverages, with just half a glass of water and an occasional cup of tea in a week. Ardeshiri has been feeling more energetic and active than before as he now requires only 4 hours of sleep a night and spends the rest of the time watching TV and solving puzzles.