Conference rocks::weight_control

662.0. "A little humor...." by FORTSC::ROCH () Mon Apr 08 1991 23:26

For your enjoyment......
    
                        DAVE BARRY ON DIETING
	

People often ask me: "Dave, what do you do for entertainment?"  The
answer is: I try on pants. It's the only real joy I have in my life
anymore, because I'm on a diet. It's called the Think About Food
All The Time Diet. The way it works is, you turn every experience you
have into a food fantasy. For example, if you're watching the movie
"Alien," and you get to the part where the spaceship crew member is
lying on the table, looking queasy, and suddenly his chest bursts open,
blood flying everywhere, and out lunges this horrible, gore-dripping
insect-like thing, your reaction, on the Think About Food All The Time
Diet, is, "Hey, I could sure go for some ribs!"
	On this diet, if you were on a commercial jetliner seven miles in the
air, and all the engines exploded and you started plummeting toward the
Earth, your only thought would be: "Damn! I could have had the lasagna
instead of the apple."
	I got on this diet because one day several months ago my wife became
possessed by demons in a mall and purchased a digital computerized
bathroom scale. I have always liked the old-fashioned, incompetent
bathroom scale, the kind that makes a creaking noise when you step on
it, and the dial swings wildly back and forth as if the scale is trying
to make up its mind, and it never gives you anywhere near the same
weight twice, and if it seems to be registering a little on the heavy
side, you can adjust the little knob, or simply put the scale on the
bathmat and instantly lose 27 pounds. You don't feel a lot of pressure
with a scale like that.
	But the scale my wife brought home was a very strict Certified Public
Accountant of a scale, the kind that, in Scale College, was always
studying in the library on Friday night when the other scales were at
wild parties puking their springs out. When I stood on this new scale
and it informed me, within one-tenth of a pound, how much I weighed, my
immediate reaction was that a very large parasite, such as a Doberman
pinscher, had attached itself to my body somewhere without my being
aware of it.
	Looking back, I realize I'd been ignoring subtle signs of weight
gain, such as that I had worn only one pair of pants for three straight
years. They were my biggest pants. The only way I could wear my other
pants would have been on my arms. But I did not attribute this to weight
gain. I attributed it to a natural weight shift that occurs as guys get
older, wherein your weight gradually shifts to your thighs from other
areas, such as your refrigerator.
	It had not occurred to me that my pants situation might be related to
eating habits I had developed regarding foods such as spray cheese. This
is a kind of synthetic cheese that comes in an aerosol can, like shaving
cream. You're supposed to make hors d'oeuvres with it by squirting
dainty little cheese flowers onto crackers, but I figured, hey, why
slave away for as long as two seconds over a Triscuit when you can
obtain instant results by squirting the cheese directly into your mouth?
I was going through as many as two cans a day, which is the biological
equivalent, hors-d'oeuvre wise, of attending nine wedding receptions.
This is not natural. One of the first things you notice when you look at
healthy animals in the wilderness is that they are not spraying canned
cheese into their mouths.
	Of course there is nothing natural about the "food" I eat on the
Think About Food All The Time Diet, either. For example I eat "rice
cakes," which are obviously made from the foam pellets used to protect
VCRs during shipment. Also I drink diet "shakes," similar to the ones
that Oprah Winfrey used back when she reaped massive publicity by losing
an amount of weight equivalent to all of Sally Jessy Raphael. Instead of
eating a regular meal, you simply drink a glass of skim milk mixed with
a special powder containing scientifically balanced chemicals that
render your body too weak to chew.
	Every now and then, for a major eating treat, I fix myself a Weight
Watchers frozen entree, which is a convenient product that comes right
out of the box with most of the food already eaten for you. My guess is
that this happens at the Weight Watchers factory, which is probably
staffed by diet-crazed workers who grab the food as it goes by on the
conveyer belts and stuff it into their mouths, leaving you with an
entree the size of a cocktail olive, crouching in the center of your
plate, whimpering. They're working on an entree with no food at all;
you'll purchase a box containing a small frozen plastic plate, which
you'll just heat up and throw away.
    
Meals like these do not leave me satisfied. Meals like these leave me
thinking of ways to distract the dogs so I can quietly grab a handful of
their kibble. The only time I feel really good is when I'm trying on
pants. It's the highlight of my existence. I wish I'd saved my pants
from high school, so I could try them on. What I'm looking for is a
restaurant where, when the waiter brings around the dessert cart, he
also brings a pants cart, so I can select a couple of pairs and try them
on in the men's room while all the normal humans eat cheesecake. But for
now I'll just stay home, waiting for the Big Moment when I can thaw out
my dinner (Tonight's Special: Molecule of Beef). Not that I am asking
for your sympathy.
	"Excuse me, do you plan to eat that entire Tic-Tac?"
	

	(C) 1991 THE MIAMI HERALD
	DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
 

    

    LOVE IT!
    
    -Lynn T.

                         DIETING

BREAKFAST                         LUNCH
1 grapefruit                      4 oz. lean broiled chicken breast
1 slice whole wheat toast, dry    1 cup steamed vegetables
3 oz. skim milk                   1 cup herb tea
                                  1 Oreo cookie

AFTERNOON SNACK                   DINNER
Rest of the Oreos in the package  1 loaf garlic bread with cheese
1 quart Rocky Road ice cream      large pizza with all toppings
1 jar hot fudge sauce with        4 cans or 1 large pitcher of beer
  nuts, cherries, whipped cream   3 candy bas or 1 bag of candy


LATE EVENING SNACK

Entire frozen cheesecake eaten directly from freezer


RULES FOR THIS DIET

   1. If you eat something and no one sees you, it has no calories.

   2. Drinking diet soda with any other food cancels the calories of the food.

   3. Calories don't count if you eat less than your dinner partner.

   4. Calories from medicinal foods never count (i.e., brandy, cheesecake,
      cookies).

   5. If you hang around with fat people you will look thinner.

   6. Movie-related foods do not count as they are part of the entertainment
      package (i.e., Milk Duds, buttered popcorn, Cokes, JuJus, Junior Mints).
   
   7. Cookie pieces contain no calories. Breaking causes calorie leakage.
   
   8. Things licked off of knives, spoons, or fingers have no calories, but
      only when preparing something (i.e., peanut butter, ice cream, 
      frostings).
   
   9. Foods of the same color have the same calories (i.e., spinach and
      pistachio ice cream).