10 Reasons Why

10 Comforting Lies You Can Tell Yourself about That Stupid Diet You’re Supposed to Be Following

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1. The bathroom scale is clearly possessed by demons.

There can be no other explanation for the erratic way those damn numbers keep saying the wrong thing and going in the wrong direction. Cleanse your house of evil spirits. Leave the tainted scales on the front steps of a local church (Pentecostal if you can find one) and then go buy another machine, preferably one that plays well with others.

2. Anything that you only take a small bite of doesn’t count.

A tiny little nibble of forbidden fruit shouldn’t result in a bad report card. In fact, you’re really just doing a quality check to protect the lives of other people who are allowed to eat gallons of whatever they want. If you didn’t take the time to make sure that the coconut cream pie was up to standard, then other people might suffer, and you don’t want that on your conscience. Mother Teresa would have made the same sacrifices for humanity.

3. The area directly in front of the fridge is a no-calorie zone.

If you stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open, anything you consume is immediately disqualified from any statistical record-keeping. As long as that little light stays on, shining down on the glistening shelves of forbidden goodies, you’re golden. If necessary, pay a small child to hold the door for you as you attack things like whole pizzas or cream-heavy casseroles that require the use of both hands.

4. Cows are generally considered sacred in India.

This means that you should have cheese on everything that you eat, because not doing so would be an affront to the various religious affiliations of a very large number of people. Cows make milk. Milk can make cheese. Rudely ignoring the deliciousness of cheese means that you don’t revere the goodness of the cow, and that’s just disrespectful, because we should all support one another on our spiritual paths. We are the world. We are the cheese-eaters.

5. Tasteless, low-fat frozen dinners are an affront to civilization.

Societies have managed to survive for thousands of years without eating watery nuggets of mystery meat and immense amounts of broccoli that have been flash-frozen and then nuked in a microwave. Why mess with tradition? Besides, we all know that something is wrong with those dinners. If the manufacturer has to add 8,000 milligrams of sodium, they’re covering up some kind of mess in there that we should avoid.

6. Chocolate is being unjustly persecuted.

Why do the doctors hate chocolate? What has it ever done to anybody? All it does is sit there and look really desirable, and what’s wrong with that? Take a stand and support the downtrodden. Occupy Hershey.

7. Treadmills are really over-rated.

After all, you’re not actually going anywhere. What’s the point? You might as well try to be productive and walk to an actual destination. Preferably one that serves ice cream and non-judgment. Besides, we all know you can burn calories by fighting your way out of a triple-decker hot fudge sundae by using your tongue.

8. Protein is necessary for your body to function as it should.

Which means you need to get it wherever you can. These are busy times, people. We don’t all have the luxury to grow our own organic tofu or personally hand-pick soybeans. We’re on a tight schedule. If that means you need to get your protein from the Big Boy Country Platter at the local Grease-O-Rama Diner, then so be it. Do not dwell on your possible malfeasance. This too shall pass, most likely two hours later when you make a mad dash to the lavatory, knocking aside Grandma and Mother Teresa in a karma-depleting quest for digestive freedom.

9. If you’re at a restaurant and you tip your food server well, then all fat grams are instantly negated.

It’s true. Surplus cash left on the table erases bad-food decisions, according to Prius, the Nature Goddess of Harmonic Guilt-Shifting. So, order what you want. Just be sure that you fully grasp the concept of “decent tip”. If you are one of those twits who leaves two bucks on a sixty-dollar tab, you will be met at the restaurant door by Angrus, the Patron Saint of Food Service Personnel Who Have Been Stiffed by Wankers.

10. America is fixated with unrealistic body image expectations.

Ignore the pointless madness. Do what you can, try to be good, avoid the really awful stuff that you shouldn’t be putting in your mouths. But don’t beat yourself down. Everybody is different, everybody has different challenges, and everybody has a unique purpose and place. It’s far more important to find out who you were meant to be and embrace that, rather than spend your life being what others think you should.

Cheers.

 

Originally published in “The Sound and the Fury” on 03/28/12. Modified and expanded for this post. And yes, I realize that you should listen to your doctor, assuming you have a good one. But there’s no reason to feel bad about what makes you feel good. Now, let’s join hands and sing a lovely Joan Baez song around the campfire, as tomorrow is Friday, which means another Clam Bake at Bonnywood. Unless I get distrac

 

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36 replies »

  3. Couldn’t have come at a better time for me, today I ate a whole packet of Tim Tams. I must seek forgiveness and forgetfulness and get on with it – but I will probably just be drinking water for the next 3 weeks to attempt to atone. – well, actually I will be thinking about drinking water to atone, but most likely scoffing more Tim Tams – sigh 🙂

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  7. Uh huh. Tell me to lose weight and I can guarantee that all I’m going to want is chocolate cake, chocolate cookies, apple pie (my fruit servings), laden-with-caolories blended mixtures to drink – keep those darn greens away from me! I’ve concluded that, at my age, the fact that my belly sticks out further than any other part of my anatomy is a sign that I’ve survived the wars. Listen, there have to be some benefits to getting old.

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    • Well, since my distended belly often helps support the table at the restaurants where I am eating things that I shouldn’t, I take satisfaction in knowing that I am providing architectural assistance to society at large, so to speak…

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    • I had two friends, they were sisters, who always broke cookies before they ate them. They would take hold of a cookie on a platter, break in half, eat the half. Repeat until platter full of crumbs.
      No one knows what happened to these sisters, but I’m sure they had a bad end. And if you give me time, I’ll come up with my alibi.

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  9. In my corner of reality (aka the world) d-i-e-t is a four letter word and treated with the same disdain and avoidance. It’s truly a dirty word. You have inadvertently given me justification for that humongous ‘pig’s dinner’ (aka sundae of immense proportion) that I bought yesterday. I only consumed maybe 1/6 of it (so far), but it’s early days. And the god of lactose intolerance hasn’t complained (yet), so maybe I’mma gonna get a pass on eating that thing. It truly would feed a small village. It consists of six generous scoops of ice cream (you choose your flavor…mine was chocolate and chocolate and a little carmel fudge and some burnt almond (for that protein you talked about in #8). Top these glistening mounds of icy goodness with both hot fudge and hot caramel topping. Top those with a very generous mounding of whipped cream (the real stuff, not that ersatz crap in a can), sprinkle some chopped peanuts around, and top with two cherries. Oh. My. Gawd. It’s truly a religious experience for the mouth. And now I can eat it in greedy peacefulness, knowing that I’m justified. Or vindicated. Because America (and other countries around our globe) do have a very skewed view of human anatomy and what constitutes physical ‘beauty’. We’re not all built the same (not as in dangly bits mind you), but our BONES and frames are different sizes, shapes and density. So what might be an acceptable weight/height ratio for one, certainly won’t fit another who is older/younger, shorter/taller, leaner/meatier or a host of other variables. The main thing that’s lacking in the diet sweepstakes o’ shame is common sense. NOBODY (much – present company excepted) has any of that daily requirement.

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    • I really did intend to provide a philosophical response to your commentary, but I am now fixated on the glorious elements of this sundae on which you are working, and I cannot think of anything else but having the exact same thing. It is now my mission to seek high and low until I run across an establishment that can magically recreate the very thing of which you eat. I was never meant to be a supermodel, but I WAS meant to be happy, and it would be a failure on my part if I did not do everything I can to achieve gustatory nirvana…

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  10. I enjoy all of these… but #7 brings back a memory. Years ago, my brother-in-law bought a membership to a health club. He rode his bike there to take a shower, because the shower in his apartment wasn’t working. Rode across a parking lot filled with cars, and indoors walked past a lot of people on stationary bikes. J.

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  15. I’m pretty sure that I read somewhere that chocolate was a vegetable. It comes from a plant, plants are vegetables, therefore chocolate is a health food. Just doing my part to get those 8-10 servings a day …. or more on bad days.

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