Dieting May Be Hazardous To Your Health

Over my lifetime I have shed 327 pounds. Diets tell you to visualize weight. 8 pounds is a newborn. 15 pounds is a 15 year old cell phone. 327 pounds is a male warthog. You've seen me, so you're probably searching the internet, muttering," I gotta find the spanx she's been wearing." Stop searching. I never weighed over 400 pounds. I never weighed over 115 pounds. Nevertheless, I've been on one diet or another for 40 years. The 327 pounds is the weight cumulatively lost by dieting. For those of you who just squeaked by calculus, let me explain that the total would not have reached 327 pounds had I kept the weight off after each regimen. Instead, I'd lose 5 pounds on the diet and gain it back as soon as I resumed eating something other than grass.
I will not bore you with the details of my teenage infatuation with amphetamines as a diet aid, other than to tell you that they were equally effective at suppressing my appetite and giving me a borderline personality disorder. Nor will I disgust you with the side effects of the diet requiring me to consume eight bowls a day of cabbage and tomatoes. Of the Atkins diet, I have only praise. I was permitted cheeseburgers, bacon, eggs and unlimited vodka. I was sated and plastered for the three weeks I was on it. Unfortunately,as a result of Atkins, I gained six pounds and was forced to go on Zocor.
I've read that fad diets are dangerous, omitting necessary nutrients, electrolytes and often, actual food. Weight Watchers, the health pundits opine, is the only safe effective "weight loss program." I tried it last year, lost weight, reached my goal and consequently became a "lifetime member," entitling me to free meetings and more important, free weigh-ins. If you have never dieted, you may not recognize the value of being weighed in by a stranger on an impartial scale.
Here's how I ordinarily weigh myself. Making sure my hair is dry so as not to add ounces, naked, I mount the scale. I look down. If the number looks good, I get off the scale and eat a donut. If the number looks bad, I move the scale a few feet to the left and step on it again. If the number is still bad, I move the scale again, repeating the process until I get a number closer to what I want. At Weight Watchers, you step on the scale. Your weight is visible to the person weighing you in, but NOT to you. You have no opportunity or reason to cheat.
A condition of maintaining lifetime membership is weighing in once a month and staying within two pounds of your goal weight. Last Saturday, I decided to report for my December weigh in at a walk-in weight watcher's location on 19th Street. The door to the office building was locked, but someone leaving the premises let me in. I took the elevator to three and found the door to the weight watcher's premises locked. I was disappointed and surprised since I thought this location was open 24/7 for lifers like me who might feel an irresistible urge to be weighed. I went downstairs. The buildings door was locked. A label beneath a green button on the side of the door read,"push to exit." I pushed the button and pushed the door. The door did not budge. I pushed the button and pulled the door. The door did not budge. I repeated this exercise 13 times, hoping fervently that I had been pushing and pulling incorrectly the previous times.
The building appeared deserted. I was locked in the lobby of 59 West 19th Street with no way out. I was the man trapped in an elevator over a weekend. Like him, I would not be found until office workers arrived Monday. Having eaten only a tiny bowl of Fiber One on Saturday morning,I might die of starvation. Worse yet, why had I picked this day to have a high fiber cereal and a large cup of coffee. I started to hyperventilate. Then I remembered my cell phone. 911. I called, embarrassed. I started to tell the operator my story...weight watchers, lifetime, weigh-in, fiber one, yada yada. She put me on hold. HOLD! I waited patiently, thinking,"Okay, my predicament may not rise to the level of a fire or armed robbery, but was she allowed to put me on hold?"
As I was musing, my savior arrived. A woman came out of the elevator, saw me and said,"Press the green button and push the door simultaneously. I know, because it's happened to me too."
Tasting freedom for the first time in a quarter hour, I skipped down 6th Avenue to the bathroom at Bed Bath and Beyond. I exuberantly peed. Then, I raced to Ray's Pizza on 11th and 6th, where I got two slices, with pepperoni. While adding the hot pepper, I thought," The pundits are wrong. Based on experience, Weight Watchers is the most dangerous diet of all."