Skip to Main Content

Crash Diet

Residents May 11, 2012
There's no excuse this year, I know, what with our strangely balmy winter and beautiful, blue-skied spring; as a matter of fact, an argument could be made that this year, Mother Nature was all but screaming at me:  “Stop digging through the cream cheese with your fingers! You have to put some shorts on soon!" Did I listen? Of course not. I have only myself to blame. I don’t listen to my actual mother nearly enough, why would I listen to a woman who got fooled into thinking a tub of margarine was butter (ridiculously out-dated pop-culture reference alert!)? Just like every December 23rd I have nary a present purchased, every year Memorial Day lands on me like a giant anvil. A giant anvil made of thigh fat. The magazine headlines in the mailbox warned me: "Beach weather is but 10 weeks away!"  "Blast your belly fat in time for sundress season!"  "The thought of you in a tank top makes Jillian Michaels vomit!" and so forth. I glanced at them in March while I waited for the girl to ring up my ice cream. Ten weeks sounded like such a long time, eight weeks ago. But now, here we are...the dreaded count-down to summer. Which crash diet will I fail at this year? A friend of mine just finished the HCG diet, in which one ingests a hormone women produce during pregnancy and then eat no more than 500 calories a day for a month. My sister is doing a liquid cleanse; she has to drink several glasses of a vile-smelling potion that makes her highly flatulent…and eat no more than 500 calories a day. For a month. Is it just me, or does the hormone-taking and vile-drink drinking seem extraneous? Eat less than 500 calories a day and you’re going to lose weight, right? You’ll probably loss your mind, your job, all of your hair and most of your friends, too, but at least you’ll be thin. Years ago, the book "Fit for Life" was really popular. The guy who wrote it had lots of rules for eating; only certain foods at certain times of the day, no carbs with meat, etc. There was also an entire page in the book with the words "DO NOT OVEREAT" typed across it again and again. Well, elementary, me dear Watson. If I could do that, I wouldn't need your book. That goes double for plans like Slim-Fast; you’re allowed to eat one of those delicious, chocolaty candy bars per day. If I had that kind of control, I wouldn't need help. Have you heard of Sensa? It's a powder you shake onto your food so you eat less of it. I can think of lots of things people could shake on their food so they wont eat it…Comet cleanser, yard mulch, baby powder, dead flies collected from window sills, heck, why not really scare someone straight and use rat poison?  You just have to make sure to tell them first. We don’t anyone going to prison over a few extra pounds. It’s getting late…I wonder if there’s any cream cheese left? By Katie McCollow I’ve still got two weeks.