Fad Diet

Yesterday I started a one week diet that is supposed to help you lose 10-15 lbs. It's called the "Cabbage Soup Diet," and it works by effectively starving you for seven days.

Here's how you do it. First, cook up a giant batch of cabbage soup, using celery, green onions, onion soup mix, diced tomatoes, V8 Juice, bullion and, of course, cabbage. For the next week, the soup constitutes the base of your diet. You are to eat as much cabbage soup as you like, whenever you're hungry.

In addition, the diet prescribes an ever-changing list of daily foods you must eat along with the soup. Day one is all the fruit you can eat, except bananas. Day two is all the vegetables you can handle, minus a few select varieties. Day three is a mix of days one and two. On day four, you eat bananas and drink skim milk. Day five: Steak. Day six: Steak and tomatoes. Day seven: Brown rice and vegetables.

The science behind the madness: While you are stuffing yourself on soup, apples and greens, you are in actuality consuming very few calories. Full stomach + Few calories = Starvation, without those bothersome Stabbing Hunger Pangs. Just seven torturous days of cabbage soup aversion therapy.

This is truly a fad diet.

I am well aware of this.

I am also aware that the cabbage soup diet is scorned by respectable nutritionists (respectable nutritionists being nutritionists who have successfully graduated from college but were still unable to get into med school). That doesn't bother me. The average American is so overfed that he could stop eating for two weeks without doing any lasting damage. An actual doctor said that.

Why the crazy diet? The last time I went to the doctor, I weighed in at 211 lbs. That's a whole lot of Q'ner. The doctor told me I had to lose 40 lbs.

I asked him: "Any suggestions?"

"Exercise your mouth less and your body more."

Thanks, doc. Is a personal check OK?

Q'ner a few years ago: "Hey, good lookin'!"


Q'ner a few weeks ago: "Whatcha got cookin'???!!!"


Anyway, I'm feeling a bit too lazy to get to the gym. Or to start jogging, bicycling or any other "ing" that requires me to break a sweat. So I'm going the quick fix route. My reasoning is that by dropping 10-15 lbs. in a week, I'll have the motivation I need to transition to a more reasonable, long term eating health...lifestyle.

Let me have my fantasy.

So here I am, finishing off day two. Let's start the exciting, blow-by-blow coverage:

Day One: It's go time!
On Sunday I buy all the ingredients for the soup but fall asleep (with a belly full of Indian food) before I can make up a batch. So on Monday for lunch I order butternut squash soup from Pret and eat some mixed fruit. That night I cook up the soup and eat three bowls. It tastes pretty good. I then eat a bunch of strawberries and hobble to the bathroom as the cabbage tears down my intestinal tract and slams up against the inside of my clenched rectum.

Interesting experiment: Eat a handful of cabbage, then drop another handful of cabbage from shoulder height. See which one hits the floor first.

At midnight, I turn off the light and climb into bed. Then I climb out of bed, turn on the light and funny-walk to the bathroom. This is going to be a challenge.

Day Two: This was still a good idea!
When did I start disliking vegetables? In my mind the directive to "eat as many leafy greens as you'd like today" means eating no leafy greens. That's how many I'd like today. But I have to eat something besides the increasingly unattractive bowl of soup that I tucked in my bag this morning, so I resolve to find some palatable veggies.

At 11:30, I microwave the whole tub of soup and start chowing down. My officemate Nick remarks that the soup smells pretty good.

"Wanna try some?" I ask.

"Nah."

Instead, Nick opts for a delicious sandwich. I scoop up another spoonful of my luke-warm, anemic sludge and tell him that his lunch smells good, too.

After finishing half of the container, I run to the men's room. In the stall I come to the realization that food and poo are the twin obsessions of the fad dieter. You're constantly thinking about various kinds of one while producing various kinds of the other. I finish, stand up and sit back down for round two of a six round bout. At some point I notice an odd, burning odor. Is that the smell of emulsified fat exiting my body? Or am I perhaps already delusional from malnutrition?

I leave work for a smoke and decide to go to the deli, which offers an all-you-can eat buffet. I peruse the isle as hordes of cheerfully plump New Yorkers fill jumbo to-go boxes with fried chicken, braised pork, beef, tuna, sushi rolls, mashed potatoes, tofu triangles and crab salad. What can I eat here? Most of the vegetables are drenched in butter, oil, bacon or all three. I spot a steaming pile of broccoli and cauliflower with nobody around it. "Mmmmm" I think, lying to myself.

At 4:00, I reheat my container of soup and eat another few bowls. I leave at six for Brooklyn. The ride home is long. I feel cold and uncharitable. My intestines are in a constant state of adjustment.

I exit the train and go to the store to get a baked potato. This is the big, day-two indulgence listed in the diet. A single baked potato with butter. I arrive home and toss the potato in the oven and set it to broil. A few minutes later, my apartment fills with smoke and the scent of burning mozzarella. For the past year my oven has served one purpose: to reheat slices of pizza. I've been meaning to clean it.

My potato should be nearly done by now. And most of the smoke has cleared out of my apartment. I opened all my windows and shoved a towel under my front door so the smoke wouldn't alarm the rest of the building. I feel like a kid doing bong hits in his dorm room. I must go now to savor my flavorless potato. I'll provide an update in a few days. Wish me well.