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Kirstie's secret sweatbox diet

Title: Kirstie's secret sweatbox diet
Date: Tuesday, 15 September 1992
Publisher:
Author: Claire Thomas
Main source: link (275 KiB)

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Shocking way Cheers gal shaped up for the [?]

Star melts off 35 lb on bizarre sect's red-hot program

She roasted 4 hours a day and fasted on water & vitamins

KOOKY Kirstie Alley used her own special version of a bizarre diet concocted by the Scientology sect to slim down before hosting the Emmy Awards, says a source close to the Cheers star.

For four weeks, hefty Kirstie drank gallons of water laced with vitamin B3 and spent four hours a day roasting in a suffocating sauna!

"Kirstie's weight ballooned to 180 pounds this summer, and she knew she had to lose weight before the show," says the source.

Special dry sauna

"She's a Scientologist, and the diet she chose is her version of the sect's Purification Program.

"It worked, too — she lost 35 pounds in four weeks!"

In his book, Clear Mind, Clear Body, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard devised a three-week diet that requires running for a half-hour a day, followed by sitting in a sweatbox for at least four hours.

"Kirstie had a special dry sauna built into her property in Encino just for the program," says the source.

"The sweatbox is inside her pool house."

Kirstie told a pal: "I did aerobics instead of running. After my half-hour workout, I jumped into the sauna, where I stayed for four to five hours. The temperature soared to 180 degrees.

"I got bored stiff inside the box, so I had a small portable TV set installed.

While she was in the sweatbox, she downed huge jugs of ice water laced with about 3,000 milligrams of vitamin B3, says the pal. "That's an incredible amount, and it has strange effects on the body."

Taken in proper doses, the vitamin — also called niacin — is supposed to be good for the circulation and the skin and lower cholesterol.

'Three-day fasts'

Kirstie's pal says the star told her: "It gave my body a flush wherever it hadn't been exposed to the sun. This is to signify the release of radiation in the body,"

The pal says the program "suggests you eat in the sauna, but Kirstie went on three-day fasts several times during the four-week period."

Although she lost a lot of weight, a Cheers insider says that Kirstie was behaving strangely when the show started taping for the new season.

Kirstie tore into it'

"She was so edgy that Ted Danson was the only one who was talking to her by the end of the day," says the source.

"At a post-taping party, there was a wonderful spread of omelettes, pasta, salads, fajitas, fruit and other kinds of food.

"Kirstie tore into it as though she was starving — and maybe she was. One of the extras told me that she hadn't eaten anything all day, and she drank only vegetable juice.

"Everyone on the show, especially Rhea Perlman, was whispering about what a witch she's become since going on that diet."

Dr. Robert Stark, a top diet expert, warns that Kirstie's diet program is "absolutely hazardous and ridiculous."

—CLAIRE THOMAS

[Picture / Caption: Kirstie's slim & trim after her weight peaked at 180 lbs., but she's irritable around her Cheers co-stars, says a source]