Legendary singer Elvis Presley's desperate battle with his ballooning weight led the King of Rock 'n Roll down a dangerous path of extreme and often bizarre diet experiments that medical experts now consider potentially lethal.

As public ridicule mounted over his dramatic 176-pound weight gain during the 1960s and early 1970s, reaching a peak of 350 pounds, Presley turned to increasingly radical methods to shed the excess weight that threatened both his career and health.

The most extreme attempt came in early 1973, when Presley was described by his longtime girlfriend Linda Thompson as being in the "worst" physical condition of his life.

Facing mounting pressure before his landmark "Aloha from Hawaii" television special, the entertainer embarked on a crash diet that restricted him to just 500 calories daily while receiving injections of protein extracted from pregnant women's urine.

Thompson documented this disturbing period in her memoir A Little Thing Called Life, revealing the dangerous lengths to which Presley would go.

The unusual protein injections were purportedly designed to accelerate fat burning, though medical science has never validated such claims.

"I was amazed Elvis had the stamina to put on such a demanding show at the time, given how few calories he was consuming," Thompson wrote of his preparation for the Hawaii concert.

The crash diet initially appeared successful, with Presley losing 8-10 pounds.

However, Thompson noted that media criticism about his weight deeply wounded the sensitive performer.

She told CNN that negative comments "hurt his feelings," explaining his motivation for such drastic measures.

Perhaps even more alarming was Presley's attempt at what he called the "sleeping beauty diet" during the 1970s.

This dangerous method involved a Las Vegas physician placing him in a medically induced coma for several days to prevent eating entirely.

The bizarre experiment failed when Presley accidentally fell from his hospital bed and awakened prematurely.

Another unusual dietary experiment involved Presley attempting to survive exclusively on jelly made from his favorite black cherry soda for weeks at a time, demonstrating his willingness to try virtually any method to control his weight.

These extreme measures were driven partly by Presley's complicated relationship with food, rooted in his impoverished childhood.

His daily consumption often reached 10,000-12,000 calories, centered around indulgent Southern comfort foods he couldn't afford as a youth.

His signature breakfast sandwich alone contained over 1,000 calories, according to Serious Eats - a butter-soaked combination of peanut butter, banana, and bacon. Mary Jenkins Langston, his personal chef for 14 years, told the BBC, "For breakfast, he'd have homemade biscuits fried in butter, sausage patties, four scrambled eggs, and sometimes fried bacon."