New! Weight Loss Secret! Astound Your Friends! Annoy Your Neighbors!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I went to a nearby gas station to pick up some ice tonight, and there was a bowl of miniature Cherry Mashes for sale (individually wrapped) on the counter. (For those of you who don’t know, a Cherry Mash is a sickeningly sweet, artificially-flavored, hot pink cherry center surrounded by milk chocolate with almond bits in it. In other words, they’re the best things ever.) I mentioned offhand that it would be nice to have a low-carb version of the things.

The attendant, a woman about, oh, 45 or so, came around the counter. “Oh, honey,” she said (older women always call me honey), “That’s not the secret. I’ll tell you the secret.”

“What’s that?” I said, partially out of politeness and partially out of a hope that I was going to find out about some deeply hidden calorie-resistant sub-society that I could join for only $19.95 and a few drops of blood.

“It’s not what you eat; it’s how much.” Okay, well, that’s not really a radical viewpoint, although my experience and many others’ provides a counterpoint to that. Anyway, she went on. “I used to weigh over 300 pounds, close to 400,” she said. I should mention at this point that this woman was about six feet tall and probably a size 16. Just for reference’s sake.

“Really!” I said, not being able to think of a better Miss Mannersish response.

“Yup.” She said it just like that, too. “What I did was, every time I got hungry, I ate a candy bar and drank a diet pop. Sometimes I’d have a little bag of potato chips instead.”

(Insert stunned silence here.)

When I recovered, my brain said, “Dear God, woman, have you ever heard of those newfangled things called nutrients?” Hopefully, though, my mouth said something like, “Wow. That’s quite a bit of weight. I don’t think that approach would work for me, though.” Unspoken, of course, was the reason: I’d like to live at least until I’m 40.

“I’m telling you, that’s the way to go.” she said again. “The problem is that people sit down and eat meals.” And then she walked outside and lit up a cigarette.

2

Sounds like a good diet to me.

Huh. Heathly.

3

Specially that part about smoking in the gas station. Healthy as can be.

4

Wellll…nobody can live off candy and coke, but I do agree that portion control is the key, at least for myself. I had lap-band surgery, which works by putting a band around the stomach so you get full on a few bites of food. Thanks to the surgery, I’ve lost 70 pounds in a little over half a year, just by making my portions smaller (but I don’t drink carbonated beverages anymore, and candy is not an everyday thing!).
I think it’s impossible to stay on a diet for the long term if you feel deprived. I couldn’t stay on the low-carb diet because the only low-carb food I liked was cheese, and you can’t live off cheese either. :slight_smile: I’m so grateful I can eat pasta and sugar again nowadays…just in much smaller amounts.

5

Wellll…nobody can live off candy and coke, but I do agree that portion control is the key, at least for myself. I had lap-band surgery, which works by putting a band around the stomach so you get full on a few bites of food. Thanks to the surgery, I’ve lost 70 pounds in a little over half a year, just by making my portions smaller (but I don’t drink carbonated beverages anymore, and candy is not an everyday thing!).
I think it’s impossible to stay on a diet for the long term if you feel deprived. I couldn’t stay on the low-carb diet because the only low-carb food I liked was cheese, and you can’t live off cheese either. :slight_smile: I’m so grateful I can eat pasta and sugar again nowadays…just in much smaller amounts.

6

No, no, lavenderviolet, it’s candy, coke, potato chips and cigarettes.

Um … I have unintentionally maligned the superb Cherry Mash. It actually has peanut bits in the chocolate, not almonds. I don’t know what I was thinking last night. Also, there are tiny bits of real maraschino cherries in the filling. Just an FYI.

7

That sounds a fuck of a lot easier than eating healthy foods and exercising, like I’ve been doing for the past nine months. Here, I coulda done it in a month or so!

8

Scrambles to order a truckload of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Diet Pepsi

I think I lost a pound already just by dialing the phone. Thanks for cluing us in on the High Fructose/Glucose Diet gas station lady!

twitch, twitch

I need a cigarette. Has anyone seen my gas can?

9

Of course! Chocolate, crisps, cigarettes and coke! Why did I never realise that this was the key to dieting before?!

10

This annoying skinny bitch once told me that she figured out the secret to weight loss:

“All these years, I thought I could eat THREE times a day! Can you believe it! Three! Now I know I should just eat once and then I can have candy.”

Huh?

Sounds like my freak and your freak might be friends.

11

So what’s the problem here? You said she was about 45. Sure you don’t wanna give it a shot?
:smiley:

12

Sounds like the perfect diet for Christmas at any rate. :smiley:

By the time New Year rolls around I will be on such a sugar high that I might even do some excercise as promised in my New Years resolution.

13

That is the funniest thing I’ve read in awhile. Well, at least since last night when I was last here.

I do agree with the statement that deprivation is something that causes a lot of people to fall off the diet wagon. When dieting, I’ve always let myself have a free day on Friday and eat whatever I want. If I’ve done well during the week, I find that I often only take a few bites of the things I love the most so I don’t ruin all my hard work of the previous week. It’s also easier to make it through the week, knowing I can cheat on Friday.

Of course, that’s when I actually diet. For now, I’ll take the gas station lady’s advice and chow down on a handful of Cheez-Its and wash them down with some Dr. Pepper.

14

I agree, CarlaH1210 (and lavenderviolet). My life would certainly be less full without low-carb chocolate.

Back on topic: I want it to be known that I was trying to share a cautionary tale here. I did not mean to hold the unhinged gas station lady up as a shining example of optimal nutrition, and if this thread inadvertently starts a worldwide dieting craze, I shall in shame hurl myself from the tallest building in the near vicinity. Or a tall, narrow staircase. All right, at the very least a dangerously high curb.