Food For Thought

                                                                         

Most diets work. Most dieting doesn't. Because most dieters can't stick to what they're doing. For example, a while backⁱ I suggested an important advance in the field of dieting: “Lessay Fare: Sir Oracle's Five-Percent No-Exercise Guaranteed Twelve-Step Weight-Loss Diet.” There's no way that you wouldn't lose weight if you stuck to it, but no one did.

So no one did.

And that's the problem with dieting. People don't stick to their diets. I gave them a guaranteed diet that didn't even require exercise, and no one lost weight. I have to admit that much of the fault was my own – it wasn't in a book, and it wasn't widely publicized, so people weren't aware of it. I'm sure that it would have raised a stir if more people knew about it. With a title like that it couldn't miss having a big impact. Not that anyone would have lost weight, but I'd have made a fortune. Why would people use my diet anyway. The only motivation that I offered was that overweight was a serious problem. And I told them that no spirituality was necessary. Not very inspiring. Reading over it I can see why I didn't get rich. Some of what it said is worth repeating, but there are several points on which I have to reverse myself, not because they're wrongⁱⁱ but because they didn't achieve the desired result.ⁱⁱⁱ So what follows is a different plan to lose weight, only the approach will be different. No one has failed to lose following this advice.^iv

The two basic principles governing the construction of my new diet are

1. The dieter has to be motivated, and
2. The dieter can't be bored.

If there's one thing that motivates people, it's money.^v Make a financial commitment to your diet, buy in, and you're hooked. And the simple way to use this reality is by making the dieting process expensive. Another motivation is the simple truth that most of us are lazy. And the ones most in need of a diet are the laziest. Their dieting will be helped most by using this characteristic. Let the couch-potatoes sit. In fact, insist that they do so.^vi You'll tell them where. It's easy to convince people that there is a free lunch^vii and you have just the recipe(s) for it. And as far as recipes go, the ideas you'll reveal to them are vital to their good health and to feeling good about themselves. It's expensive but they're worth it. (A free or inexpensive program is, in the long run, a disincentive. “How good can it be if it's so cheap?” After all, you get what you pay for.^viii) And don't forget how important it is to brag about your project.

One more motivator is success. It's easy to achieve, and I'll tell you how. Soon.

As for the second principle, it's boredom^ix that sinks most diets. I noted earlier, most diets work. Early on, perhaps during the first week, it's common to see the dieter shedding pounds.^x It doesn't matter if it's a low-carb diet, or high-fat, or low calorie, or high-carb, or liquid diet, or whatever. But it soon begins to pall. And sooner or later the initial enthusiasm wears off. So the weight comes back on.

Bearing all these points in mind, however, you can construct a program that will initiate a major loss of weight – or sour you on the whole idea for life. Either way you're a winner. So here's what you do:

1. Prepare the environment.

a.  Designate a dieting room. The room should have a very comfortable couch, preferably one that's difficult to stand up from. There should also be a very wide-screen television set connected to a service that provides at least five-hundred channels none of which is a food-channel. Install a small refrigerator. Fill it with lots of water to take your appetite away.

b.   Put up “NO FOOD” signs. No eating or drinking (except water and zero calorie drinks) is permitted in that room. It should be as far as possible from the kitchen but close to a bathroom. Going to the kitchen from that room, or for thirty minutes thereafter, should be prohibited.

c.   Install an exercise machine. That machine should be expensive and should exhaust the user. Nonetheless, despite the fact that the user will be very hungry after a half-hour of exercise, no food or drink should be permitted for the next thirty minutes.^xi

d.   Designate an eating area such as the dining room. Make sure all of the chairs in it are narrow and uncomfortable.

e. Give the entire contents of the refrigerator and food cabinets to a soup kitchen.

2. Further preparations.
 

a.    Purchase eight diet books.^xii Each will have the best plan, recommend the best foods, and specify why it is better than all the others. Also join one weight-loss program or another. It doesn't matter which, as long as it's expensive and provides you with a buddy who'll suffer with you and keep you busy talking over watercress and rice crackers when you'd prefer to be eating real food.

b.  Buy all of the foods recommended by each diet book and restock your refrigerator and larder^xiii food cabinet. Buy foods of the highest quality at the highest prices. To determine this, comparison shop in several stores until you're sure you've paid the highest prices. Be sure to include large supplies of expensive bottled water.^xiv

c. Keep plenty of salad (no dressing) in the refrigerator at all times. Eat lots of it and drink plenty of water every time you feel hungry. If that doesn't make you sick of eating, nothing will. But remember: “No pain, gain.”

 

d. Post on your refrigerator and food cabinet pictures of yourself at your fattest.ⁱ

e. Dispose of all clothes larger than you are and buy new and expensive ones. And each time you get to be a size smaller, give away all those that are now too large for you as you get new and expensive ones.

 

By now you've an idea of what I'm suggesting.  The goal is to waste money. Spend as much as you can – especially on the discomfort foods (preferably ones that make you throw up) – before getting to anything you really want to eat. Once you've spent all that money and replaced your clothes, you'll be motivated to keep your diet rather than admit you wasted your money. Everyone knows about your diet. Failure will be a major embarrassment.^xvi It's true the bottom line for your expenses will expand, but your bottom, itself, may contract. And change diet books once a week to avoid boredom. Most diets work the first week, so if you rotate them it will always be the first week (of whatever diet you happen to be on at the time). It would probably be prudent to take a vitamin pill daily to compensate for the fact that your new diet will be anything but balanced, but it will be different.

Next episode:  "'Reality' And Belief" – On creative thinking.

i       November 7, 2010.

ii     I'm never wrong, even when I disagree with myself.

iii    Especially my request to send me money. No one did.

iv    Remember, however, “Past performance is no indication of future results.” (I don't want to get in trouble with unsuccessful dieters.)

v      Or, as Governor Bill Clinton put it (in the words of James Carville), “It's the economy, stupid.”

vi    And you have just the seat for them. First you convince them that they must exercise and you know just the way they should do it – with an expensive exerciser like a exercise bicycle. They'll quit soon enough. But we'll come to that presently.

vii    Even though by the time you're done with them they won't be able to afford it.

viii   I hope you don't really believe that.

ix     By the way, “boredom” and “bedroom” are anagrams. This diet does not require you, however, to get the two confused.

x      Or kilograms. It's unrealistic to expect the loss of stones during the first week. (Even Lorena Bobbitt didn't go that far.)

xi      Don't worry though. It won't be long before you lose all taste for exercise.

xii    Full disclosure. I get no kickback from all the books sold. But if you want to send me money (perhaps a dollar for each pound lost) I'll make good use of it. Crumpled, unmarked bills. The UCDC hasn't been established yet. (You'll know what that means if you've read previous blogs.)

xiii   Lard's out. Fattening.

xiv    It's no better for you than tap water (and may, in fact be worse) and the plastic bottles will certainly be bad for the environment, but the fiscal disbursement will contribute to the conviction that the diet is a serious one.

xv    Pregnancy not included.

xvi   How's that for motivation?