D I E T S :   Metabolife, Snickers Bars and Oreo Cookies

I've had troubles with my diet, recently.  Although I lost 80 pounds in 2000, last year I gained 30 back again. I've been struggling with cravings, especially chocolate.  (The toughest part of a diet isn't watching what you eat. It's watching what other people eat.)

I've found something recently that I think might work. I've been taking a diet aid called "Metabolife." As best I can tell, it's a nutritional supplement that provides minerals to your body that will decrease cravings for carbohydrates. The instructions say that you are to take one tablet twice daily with meals.   So that's what I've been doing. One tablet with half a pizza, three burgers, fries, a shake and a piece of chocolate cake. 

And guess what!!! It works. I'm not having the cravings anymore. I'm not losing weight, yet, but I'm sure that the weight loss is just around the corner. In no time at all, I'll be skinnier than Calista Flockhart. 

B I N G E   E A T I N G

Binge eating is often a problem with people who have weight problems. I generally don't have too much trouble with this, but occasionally I'll go a little bit overboard. In a recent issue of "Oprah" magazine, I read an article on dieting and weight loss, and they addressed the issue this way: The article stated that "It's never too late to stop a binge. Six Oreo cookies is better than six Oreo cookies and a piece of pie."

Excellent point.

I think I'm going to adopt this as my philosophy. If you take this a step farther, six Oreo cookies and a piece of pie is better than six Oreo cookies, a piece of pie and a scoop of ice cream. And six Oreo cookies, a piece of pie and a scoop of ice cream is better than six Oreo cookies, a piece of pie, a scoop of ice cream and a snickers candy bar. And that of course is better than a dozen Oreo cookies, two pieces of pie, half a quart of ice cream three snickers bars and half a chocolate cake.

Well, you get the idea.

Just remember, "It's NEVER too late to stop a binge."

F U N   S I Z E D   C A N D Y

Today I had one of those "Fun Size" snickers bars. If ever a product were misnamed, I think these most certainly are. The "Fun Size" candy bars are about 1/4 the size of a "regular" size candy bar. Tell me what's fun about that? If I wanted to create a "Fun Size" candy bar, it would NOT be SMALLER than the regular sized candy bars. If I were to create a "Fun Size" candy bar it would be about 3 feet long and six feet wide. It would be large enough to be enjoyed by everyone in an average sized American city.

These "Fun Size" snickers should be called what they really are. They should be called the "Disappointing Size" Snickers....or perhaps the "I'm Not Really Hungry Size" Snickers ..... or perhaps the "I don't like Snickers Size" Snickers. Whatever they are called, they should NOT be called "Fun Size."

T H E   S T R E S S   D I E T

Have you heard of the stress diet? It's supposed to reduce feelings of stress that often accompany dieting. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks promising.

THE STRESS DIET

Breakfast

1/2 Grapefruit

1 Slice Whole Wheat Toast, Dry

8 oz. Skim Milk

Lunch
4 oz. Lean Broiled Chicken Breast

1 cup Steamed Spinach

1 cup Herb Tea

1 Oreo Cookie

Mid-Afternoon Snack

Rest of the Oreos in the package

2 Pints Rocky Road Ice Cream

1 Jar Hot Fudge Sauce

Nuts, Cherries, Whipped Cream

Dinner

3 Loaves Garlic Bread with Cheese

Large Sausage, Mushroom & Cheese Pizza

4 Cans or 1 Large Pitcher of Beer

3 Milky Way or Snickers Candy Bars

Rules For This Diet
 

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

• When drinking a diet soda while eating a candy bar, the calories in the candy bar are canceled by the diet soda.

• When you eat with someone else, calories don't count as long as you don't eat more than they do.

• Foods used for medicinal purposes NEVER count.  Example: hot chocolate, brandy, toast, and Sara Lee Cheesecake.

• If you fatten up everyone else around you, then you look thinner.

• Movie-related foods do not have calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one's personal fuel. Example: Milk Duds, Buttered Popcorn, Junior Mints and Tootsie Rolls.

• Cookie pieces contain no calories. The process of breaking the cookie causes calorie leakage.

• Late-night snacks have no calories. The refrigerator light is not strong enough for the calories to see their way into the calorie counter.

• If you are in the process of preparing something, food licked off knives and spoons have no calories. Examples: Peanut Butter on a knife and ice cream on a spoon.

• Food of the same color have the same number of calories. Examples are spinach and pistachio ice cream, mushrooms and white chocolate. Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other.

Nutrition and Exercise:

It seems to me that there has been a lot in the news lately about the effects of red meat and fat in the American diet. Pay no attention to this rubbish.

You know the old saying "You are what you eat." Well, where does beef come from? Cows. And what do cows eat? Roughage. Either grass or alfalfa or other green leafy roughage. So, it seems only logical that when you are eating red meat, what you are really doing is providing for yourself an efficient way to get roughage into your diet. Need more vitamins? Eat a burger.

The same can be said of other "controversial" foods, as well. You know, scientists divide everything into three basic categories. Animal, vegetable and mineral. Now, think about that order of fries from McDonald's. It's not animal or mineral. It must be vegetable, then. Right? And so it is. It's made from potatoes, one of the most nutrition-packed vegetables on the planet. And what do they cook them in? VEGETABLE oil. Not mineral oil, for sure. So how can they be bad? How can you hurt your health by eating more vegetables?

How about desserts? Things like apple pie? What's apple pie made from? Apples (fruit) and the crust, mostly flour (wheat, a grain), along with a few things like eggs (protein), sugar (another vegetable...it's not animal or mineral), and so on. What could be more wholesome or American than apple pie? Want some chocolate cake? Chocolate comes from the cocoa bean, you know. (Another vegetable).

People sometimes ask about exercising. Why exercise? Would you repair your car by driving it faster or making it work harder? Of course not. Think of your body like an engine. Pamper it. What about doing sit ups, for example? You know, if you exercise a muscle, that muscle becomes larger. You should only do sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach. And who wants that? My motto: "No pain....Good!"

How do you calculate your body/fat ratio? Well, that's easy. If you have one body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, it's two to one, and so on.

So the next time your doctor advises you to eat more healthy, sit back, relax and have a burger and fries. With ketchup, of course. (You can't get too many of those veggies.)

Five Steps to a Healthy Diet

The Food and Drug Administration is planning to issue a Guideline for Dieters that advises you to:

- List your ten favorite foods.

- List your five favorite beverages.

- List all green vegetables that look like marsh grass, fur balls, or little trees.

- List water.

- Avoid 1 & 2; eat only 3; drink only 4.