It seems like every month there is a new diet fad sweeping the nation, probably because no human can live on Chrystal Lite and vegetable skins for more than thirty days, and when on the point of starvation, are forced to devour a whole chicken, half a chocolate cake, thirteen dinner roles, a box of cookies, and six ham sandwiches, ruining their diet and causing them to start the whole process over. And it may be just me, but it seems like the weight loss fads are getting crazier as the months go by. I think the problem stems from the fact that the brain needs glucose to function, and the inventors of these diets are obviously a bit glucose-deprived. To help you sort through all this diet mumbo-jumbo, I am going to eat a large chocolate bar, down a grande mocha cappuccino, and look at this from a sane standpoint.
The All-Rice Diet
Supposedly there is a man in Thailand who has existed for several years solely on long grain rice. He eats very little, meditates most of the day, and (legend has it) never has to use the bathroom. In theory this is a wonderful idea: it would save you a ton of money, and you would never have to get up from the middle of a crowded movie theater to do your business. However, I’m pretty sure that if you didn’t practice complete mind/body control through intensive meditation, you would die from a vitamin deficiency.
The No White Foods Diet
This diet is easy to follow: anything white and edible is out. White bread, white rice, bagels, milk, the marshmallowy cream inside Peeps, are all strictly forbidden. Sounds great, right? We all know white bread is a one-way ticket to Diabetesville, and that bagels are just another excuse for an extra cup of coffee. But just because a food has color doesn’t make it good for you. Here is a typical meal plan a determined unhealthy eater can use to still avoid vegetables:
Breakfast: Blueberry pie, coffee, eight slices of bacon
Lunch: Large Hershey bar, four hamburger patties, bag of skittles
Snack: Extra-large smoothie
Dinner: Mac and cheese, T-Bone steak, can of Pringles (red, yellow or green — no plain chips for you!)
Bucket-A-Day
This diet helps you control your portions by allowing you one container of food a day. Basically, you pack breakfast, lunch, and dinner into one box, and that’s all you get. What a great option — if you never leave your house. When everyone else at the office opens their salads and sandwiches, you pull out the Food Bucket. Hopefully you are not stressed or super hungry, or you are going to eat lunch, plus dinner, plus the remains of breakfast right then and there, and have to listen to Sandy from accounting snidely whispering to everyone: ‘I thought she was on a diet’. Or you go into a restaurant: ‘No thanks, I have my Food Bucket’. And, not being allowed to bring in outside food, you will be relegated to a separate corner with all the other dieters eating out of a bucket. Alone, and ostracized by society, your Bucket will only grow larger as you attempt to fill the gaping hole in your life with fried chicken and deviled eggs.
The All-Juice Diet
Cleanse your body, cleanse your spirit. Eliminate harmful toxins that cause negative energy — and lose weight at the same time! Only one small problem: humans need food to survive. You would never have seen our caveman ancestors say, “Forget that mammoth! I just found a big patch of wheatgrass!”. Sure, you can live on juice, but only for so long. Then you are going to be very, very hungry. And you will probably eat a woolly mammoth equivalent in McDonald’s hamburgers (the mammoth has less fat, by the way).
The Eat-Half-Of-It Diet
I am proud to say I invented this one myself (although it has been invented simultaneously by others). The concept is simple: whatever you are going to eat, only eat half of it. You can have that slice of cheesecake…but only half a slice. If you were going to eat a box of cookie, you are only allowed half a box. Not only a great way to lose weight, this diet plan will cut your grocery bill in half.
I think I am going to write a book — “The Woolly Mammoth Diet”, I will call it. Mammoth meat is high in protein, low in fat, is not white, and does not contain rice. Those on my diet are still allowed marshmallow peeps and potato chips. The great thing about it, all those dieters half delusional from drinking nothing but orange juice for two weeks will think it’s a great idea.
