EVERYONE had weighed in, and our diet-workshop leader began
her lecture on the week's topic — the problems of dining out. She talked about
alternatives, such as requesting diet sodas and dressings, and having meat broiled instead
of fried. Finally she turned the question over to the group for discussion.
"What is the greatest problem you encounter when going out to eat?"
Replied one woman quickly, "Running into you!"
DIET FOR STRESS and HOLIDAY OVEREATING
This diet is designed to help you cope with the stress that
builds up during the day. . and will reduce overeating !!
Breakfast:
1/2 grapefruit
1 slice whole wheat toast
8 oz. skim milk
Lunch:
4 oz. lean broiled chicken breast
l cup steamed spinach
1 cup herb tea
1 Oreo cookie
Mid-Afternoon snack:
The rest of Oreos in the package
2 pints Rocky Road ice cream, nuts, cherries and whipped cream
1 jar hot fudge sauce
Dinner:
2 loaves garlic bread
4 cans or 1 large pitcher Coke
1 large sausage, mushroom and cheese pizza
3 Snickers bars
Late Evening News:
Entire frozen Sara Lee cheesecake (eaten directly from freezer)
Rules for this Diet
1. If you eat something and no one sees you eat it, it has no calories.
2. If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, the calories in the candy bar are canceled
out by the diet soda.
3. When you eat with someone else, calories don't count if you do not eat more than they
do.
4. Food used for medicinal purposes NEVER count, such as hot chocolate, brandy, toast and
Sara Lee Cheesecake.
5. If you fatten up everyone else around you, then you look thinner.
6. Movie related foods do not have additional calories because they are part of the
entertainment package and not part of one's personal fuel. Examples: Milk Duds, buttered
popcorn, Junior Mints, Red Hots and Tootsie Rolls.
7. Cookie pieces contain no calories. The process of breaking causes calorie leakage.
8. Things licked off knives and spoons have no calories if you are in the process of
preparing something sweet and gooey.
9. Foods that have the same color have the same number of calories. . . Examples are:
spinach and pistachio ice cream; mushrooms and mashed potatoes; pink grapefruit and ham.
10. Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other food color.
11. Anything consumed while standing has no calories. This is due to gravity and the
density of the caloric mass.
12. Anything consumed from someone else's plate has no calories since the calories
rightfully belong to the other person and will cling to his/her plate. (We ALL know how
calories like to cling!)
REMEMBER: STRESSED SPELLED BACKWARDS
IS DESSERTS
WHILE home on a break from medical school, my daughter was so
busy she seldom sat down to eat a balanced meal. Using all the authority I could muster, I
lectured her on the importance of good nutrition, ending my tirade with, "The medical
schools should teach our future doctors the importance of a good diet." Hugging
me, my daughter responded, "They don't need to teach us that. After all, we do
have mothers!"
AFTER years of unsuccessful dieting, my sister finally lost a
significant amount of weight under a doctor's direction. When her suits began to sag, a
co-worker suggested she alter her clothes to fit her new figure. "Not
now," my sister protested. "Let me enjoy the sag for a little while first!"
MY BROTHER, a strict vegetarian, travels abroad for long
periods on business. When he got back from Europe one time, he called our parents home and
told Dad he was about to pay them an unexpected visit. Dad hung up. "The prodigal son
is returning!" he called to my mother. "Kill the fatted zucchini!"
A CO-WORKER whose on-and-off diet of the last five years has
yielded no visible results, responded to a compliment on her new haircut with: "It's
a desperate attempt to lose weight!"
NEVER a good dieter, my mother was in the
"on-again" phase of her "on-again, off-again" diet plan. She loves
sweets, and one day I caught her pouring chocolate syrup into a cup. "What are you
doing?" I demanded. "I'm saving calories," she insisted. "I'm
eating it without the ice cream."
ALTHOUGH I knew I had put on a few pounds, I didn't consider
myself over-weight until the day I decided to clean my refrigerator. I sat on a chair in
front of the appliance and reached in to wipe the back wall. While I was in this position,
my teenage son came into the kitchen. "Hi, Mom," he said. "Watcha
doin',
having lunch?" I started my diet that day.
AT THE diet group my wife attended, emphasis was placed on
motivation. Each week the instructor sent her a postcard with an inspirational message
based on her continual weight loss. One week, however, my wife gained a pound and we
wondered what the message would be. When it came, it was direct and to the point:
"I'd like to see less of you next week."
CONVERSATION between two young women: "Brian took me to
lunch and we had a salad. Then we split a strawberry yogurt after work. Now he wants me to
come to his place for steamed eggplant and broccoli juice." "If you don't
like him, why don't you just tell him no?" "I can't. I'm losing
weight."
AT A potluck dinner with friends, we were admiring the
display of food. Talk inevitably swung to eating habits and how much healthier our current
high-fibre, low-fat diets were. Turning to my husband, I asked, "Honey, how do
you like al dente vegetables?" "Cooked," he answered without
hesitation.
A DELICIOUS cake was served at my friend's birthday party.
Enough was left for two unexpected guests, a portly man and his wife. From the way he eyed
the cake, it was obvious the man might yield to our host's insistent invitation. My
curiosity was aroused when the latecomer pulled out his wallet, looked at a picture in it
and repeated more firmly, "No, thank you." I caught a glimpse of the
photo. There, in convincing color, was the man some months earlier, almost twice as bulky
as he was now.
A FRIEND and I had joined a Weight Watchers group. At the
first meeting the lecturer asked members which food or department at the supermarket was
the most tempting to them. One man confessed that Chinese egg rolls were his greatest
weakness, and a woman said she found it almost impossible to resist anything chocolate.
Finally it was my friend's turn. Taking a deep breath, she announced, "Aisles
two, three, four and five."
AN OVERWEIGHT business associate of mine decided it was time
to shed some excess weight. He took his new diet seriously, even changing his driving
route to avoid his favorite bakery. One morning, however, he arrived at work carrying a
gigantic coffee cake. We all scolded him, but his smile remained cherubic.
"This is a very special coffee cake," he explained. "I accidentally
drove by the bakery this morning and there in the window was a host of goodies. I
felt this was no accident, so I prayed, 'Lord, if you want me to have one of those
delicious coffee cakes, let me have a parking spot directly in front of the bakery.'
"And sure enough," he continued, beaming, "the eighth time around the
block, there it was!"
ONE day my sister was enjoying a snack when her husband
remarked, "You're getting a little broad across the beam." She promptly went on
a diet. A few weeks and several lost pounds later, my brother-in-law commented,
"You should stop losing weight. Your face is beginning to look wrinkled."
"George," came the frustrated reply, "you had better make up your mind
which part of me you enjoy viewing more - heads or tails."
A ROTUND friend of mine, succumbing to pressure from his
family, joined a weight-loss club. Well into the second week of his enforced
regimen, he decided he could no longer hack it. The club administrator, after
exhausting her persuasive talents, told him that the terms of the contract disallowed any
refund. "I'm not worried about the money," said my friend. "If you
like you can call it a donation and say that I wish to remain enormous."
AFTER noticing how trim my husband had become, a friend asked
me how I had persuaded him to diet. It was then I shared my secret: "I put our
teenage son's shorts in his underwear drawer."
TIRED of his extra pounds, my husband went on a diet that
included quantities of fish and vegetables. One evening our dinner featured rockfish and
cauliflower. When our son discovered a bone in his fish, he asked, "Mom, what should
I do with this?" "Put it someplace where you won't eat it," I
replied. With that, he promptly stuck it in his cauliflower.
AFTER my husband asked me to help him shed some unwanted
pounds, I stopped serving fattening TV snacks and substituted crisp celery. While he
was unenthusiastically munching on a stalk one night, a commercial caught his attention.
As he watched longingly, a woman spread gooey chocolate frosting over a freshly
baked cake. When it was over, my husband turned to me. "Did you ever
notice," he asked, "that they never advertise celery on TV?"