Home >  Lifestyle >  Columnists

Wednesday, January 01, 2003

Here's how it looks, typ- ically, on Jan. 1.

If I lose just one pound a week, next year at this time I'll be a stunning 52 pounds lighter. It's cold, indisputable mathematics. What could be simpler?

Here's how it looks, typically, by the Fourth of July.

If I lose just two pounds a week the rest of the year, I'll still be a stunning 52 pounds lighter by New Year's. Still indisputable, but now doubly complicated relative to application.

Here's how it looks, typically, by Sept. 1.

If I could lose just five pounds a month until New Year's, I'll at least drop 20 pounds and the year will not have been a total waste. Still mathematically sound, but daunting.

Here's how it looks, typically, by Christmas Eve.

If I could just lose a stunning 52 pounds this week, I mean without becoming a double amputee, I'll have achieved the goal I set last New Year's. Welcome to Fantasyland.

And here's how it looked, typically, last night.

If I could, stunningly, just limit myself to approximately 15 hors d'oeuvres in the next three hours, I could start 2003 at the same place I was a year ago.

Well, I can't do it anymore.

Starting today, I'm buying into every goofy fad diet that flashes into my consciousness. I'm searching the Internet under "Fraud and Quackery," and I'm writing things down. To hell with this eat-less-exercise-more logic. Bring on the Cabbage Soup Diet.

Day 1: Cabbage soup and all the fruit you want except bananas.

Day 2: Cabbage soup and all the vegetables you want.

Day 3: Multiple homicides.

Don't worry, I'll be off that diet before Day 3 and on to the next one -- The No White Things Diet. No white bread, no mashed potatoes, no baked potatoes, no more gulping instant potatoes right out of the box, you idiot, no milk, no artificially colored microwave popcorn, no salt, no sugar, no cream, no rice except brown rice, no white chocolate-covered raisins, no white chocolate-covered pretzels, no white chocolate-covered surf and turf, and -- thank God -- no cauliflower.

That'll get me to maybe Jan. 10. Then I'll have to return to the big fat goofy fad diet roster: the VLCDs (very low calorie diets), the DLCDs (dangerously low calorie diets), the ILCDs (insanely low calorie diets), and perhaps even the FCF (the full Calista Flockhart).

By February, I'll be looking at Low-Carb Diets, High-Fiber Diets, Meal Replacement Plans, Low-Fat Diets, Grapefruit Diets, Zone Diets, Ozone Diets, the Jambalaya Diet (I wish), and probably the triple-play High-Carb, Low-Fiber, Always-be-Ready-to-Replace-a-Meal-With-a-Super-Size-Bag-of-Doritos Diet. Because, after all, there are plenty of diets out there that provide for gluttony, too.

If you type "diets" into a Google search, 2.2 million Internet locales are identified within 0.06 seconds, which, somewhat mockingly, is the average time I stay on a diet. Right in my face are the details of a diet on which I can "lose 15, 30 or 75 pounds with no cravings." Now what would make them think anyone who wants to lose 75 pounds has cravings?

I'd be willing to consider a Crash Diet, a Slash Diet, a Crash and Burn Diet, even the Diet to Combat Obesity in Laboratory Animals, Especially Rodents. It sounds yummy, actually. Nothin' but thrice daily ingestion of Pellet No. 10001. And cabbage soup, of course.

I'd consider the Vegetarian Diet, which can actually work and promote tangible health benefits, but I have seen the chilling price of backsliding by would-be vegans. A friend of mine once spent five weeks at a summer camp where he "converted" to vegetarianism, exclusively to impress some females who'd done so previously.

The day I arrived to drive him home, we could not accelerate to the Burger King fast enough. He practically jumped over me into the drive-thru window.

"Whopper now! Whopper now! Code Red! You heard me, pimple boy -- bring it bleeding!"

I'm even willing to listen to depressingly cutesy diet tips, such as "post your goal somewhere where you can see it every day." Well, I don't think it'll be much past Jan. 5 before I tire of reading, "GET THROUGH A DOORWAY WITHOUT COMMERCIAL LUBRICANTS!" Equally useless: "If it's too cold for a walk outside, dance through your house to a favorite CD!" Oh yeah, what if your favorite CD is still the "Fats Domino Christmas Album"?

Makes me hungry just thinkin' about it. Ah geez. Ya know, if I could lose just one pound a week ...