Since we’re talking about diets . . .
From the looks of yesterday’s comments, I’m not the only who’s enjoyed being on Weight Watchers during my lifetime (”enjoyed” being used in its most opposite sense).
First of all, a plug for the best Weight Watchers memoir I’ve ever read: I’m Not the New Me, by Wendy McClure. I bought it in the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport during a layover, and proceeded to read it nonstop for the next two hours, laughing so hard I was crying and snorting and otherwise making a total nuisance of myself. I wrote Ms. McClure a fan letter with the subject line, “Thanks for embarrassing me in Dallas!” She never replied.
Nonetheless, if you’ve ever been on a diet, Weight Watchers or otherwise, you will totally appreciate that book. And if you have been a patron of WW, you will love it all the more. I especially like her review of various WW recipes she tried: “tastes like ass.” I’d never heard that culinary term before.
Anyway, back to you. In this season of holiday overeating, I’m sure many are either trying to stay on diets or planning to go on them as soon as the in-laws are back in the motor home heading north on the freeway. And while we are all sensible people here in our adulthood, I’m sure I’m not alone in having tried out some doozy diets in my time.
So in honor of our youthful folly, let us fully confess now.
My stupidest diets included:
The beet and potato diet (high school) (turned my pee red)
Eating every other day (high school) (worked great on the fasting days) (nearly killed me)
The trail mix diet (law school) (peanuts, raisins, and M&Ms) (gained 5 pounds in a week)
Every “Lose 10 pounds in one week!” diet appearing in Cosmopolitan (high school, college) (um, nope)
And you???
Technorati Tags: Weight Watchers, Diets, Dieting, Weight Loss, I’m Not the New Me, Wendy McClure
December 7th, 2006 at 6:25 am
At the risk of getting banned from the blog/burned in effigy, etc., I’ve never been on a diet. I suppose, occasionally, if I had a stomach flu or something, I’d be on a diet of crackers, broth, and gatorade. And when I lived in Australia, I was on the “we can’t afford anything” diet of lentils, cous cous, peanut butter, pita bread, cheese, and dried apricots. (The only thing on that list I can still bring myself to eat is cheese.) But usually, I eat what I want.
December 7th, 2006 at 7:49 am
Diana, it’s okay. I realize not everybody has had the pleasure of being fat in high school, college, the formative dating years, etc.
Your Australian diet sounds good, actually. But I can understand how you’d get awfully burnt out on that stuff.
Thanks for your confession. We still love you.
December 7th, 2006 at 8:11 am
I was Diana in a previous life. Well, my body was anyway.
I think that is why dieting is so hard for me. I never gained weight until I got pregnant at age 26. My entire life, I always ate what I wanted. And that is a hard habit to break.
Stupidest diet? Cabbage Soup. Ick.
December 7th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Ewwww. And I’m guessing with all that cabbage, farty warty had a party.
December 7th, 2006 at 9:23 am
Okay. I lied. I was 25.
And yes, cabbage soup tends to make you “bloat”.
December 7th, 2006 at 9:41 am
“Farty warty had a party?” FYI, it hurts SOO MUCH to laugh when your sinuses are all clogged.
No, you’re right. I was not overweight except for freshman year in college, when I gained my frosh fifteen and the fifteen of two of my other friends. Good times, takeout chinese food at 3 a.m.
However, I have been sitting around on my butt since August, and it has caught up to me. they were doing my measurements the other day at the bridal salon, and when they got to my hips, everyone in the store heard me gasp. I am pledging to lose three inches off these babies by the wedding. Let’s just say there’s a 17 inch difference between waist and hips.
December 7th, 2006 at 9:44 am
GASP! (Kidding.) D, don’t you know that’s why they make hoop-skirt dresses for brides? It’s not too late to exchange.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Well, I’m a big girl. I am currently 5′10 and 173. I know I’m not *fat*, but I am by no means dainty. I have a really good idea of what I want to look like, but I don’t know if it will ever happen.
I do really well on Weight Watchers… but I’m just not motivated to count points right now.
In highschool I did Atkins and got down to 130 (OMG… can you say “skinny”!!!), but as soon as I started eating carbs it all came back.
I tried doing the Zone once and I almost killed my entire family (the starvation was making me nutty).
Today I went to put on a pair of pants that I bought in April. They’re too tight now. This is so sad. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I totally need to start doing something.
I’d also like to add that my 23 year old brother is almost 6′3, 180 lbs, and built! I hate him =(
December 7th, 2006 at 10:07 am
Yeah, Christen, boys are evil that way.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Always being on the thin side I have had the opposite problem of having to endure everyone telling me my whole life to eat, to put some meat on those bones. The bad side of this is that since I don’t diet to lose weight, I often don’t eat very healthy and am happy to live on corndogs etc. This has caused some high cholesterol readings in the past and I now try to “diet” out the most trans fat, high cholesterol etc. and it is difficult. Plus I lose weight.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:26 am
Deborah, I know it’s easy to say, “Gee, I’d like that problem,” but I know it actually is a problem. I’ve heard from other naturally-skinny (excuse me–thin) friends that they get sick of being harrased about eating all the time. The food police are everywhere, whether you’re large or small.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:59 am
Deborah, I feel you. I was at a writing conference once and after the conference, a mutal acquaintance took a friend aside and said, “Does Diana have an eating disorder? She didn’t eat at any of the lunches and she’s so thin.” I didn’t eat at the lunches because they were DISGUSTING. I was totally chowing down later.
Christen, I don’t think that’s fat. You’re so tall! That’s voluptuous. I’m 5′7″ and if I go under 130 I look unhealthy. 135 is much better on me. But I think right now I might be 140.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:25 am
Well, my fiance tells me I have a great ass… so I have that going for me =)
December 7th, 2006 at 11:28 am
Wow, Diana! I just stalked you online. You’re super pretty!
When are you getting married?
December 7th, 2006 at 11:39 am
Good thing you’re already marrying your fiance, Christen, because in my book what he said counts as a proposal.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:51 am
Yeah, my man is a poet!
December 7th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
P.S. My other half (who is off today) just informed me that my chocolate arrived!!! Yay!!!
December 7th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
What appropriate timing. Enjoy!
December 7th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
christen, i was not aware that poets got days off–i learn so much on this blog.
i concur with you that diana is very beautiful (assuming that her pic is not one of a photo-shopped super-model). it made it all the more painful for me to exclude her from my list of potential daughters-in-law. i think however you will agree, i had no choice. beyond that lovely exterior is a fatal flaw–she does not believe ben stiller is funny. i’m serious.
December 7th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Well, I’ve never been fat, but I actually enjoy the South Beach Diet cookbook and the original book is an entertaining read before the recipes.
And Diana is so right about Ben Stiller. And I was going to hire her as my party planner/hostess.
December 7th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
Patrick, I’m glad you mentioned the South Beach Diet, because I went on it for one week, and I have never been so constipated in my life (no, nothing is too sensitive for the blog). It is dangerous and unnatural (in my common-law medical opinion) to cut out whole food groups. It makes for interesting diet book reading, but in practice it’s insane.
December 7th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Actually, that feeling only lasts for the first two weeks. And really, the first two weeks is a purge of the system to regain a sugar balance. It’s designed to do that.
I strongly suspect that he recommends that because it has the same pipe cleaning effect of high colonics.(Robin started down this road, not me.)
You could start on phase two if you really wanted. It just doesn’t have as much of a jump start as the phase 1 approach but it will get you there. My wife does it that way.
Personally, I just like substituting oatmeal for bread crumbs in my meatloaf.
December 7th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
Personally, I prefer to eat real food from all of the food groups, eat only when I’m hungry, stop eating when I’m full, and not go on weird diets anymore because all they make you do is OBSESS ABOUT FOOD.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
Why, thank you, Christen! I tried to blog stalk you earlier, but didn’t get far enough to find out how exactly it is that you hang out with knotties. I can’t get the hang of that website myself. But on Indiebride, where I do occasionally hang out, they make it seem as if the Knot would never accept someone with pink hair.
Next November. I just bought my dress. I need another bride to commiserate with. Be my friend?
Oddly enough, my FH said he didn’t care what I wore to the wedding as long as it made my ass look good. Couched in some sort of statement about how a tribal bride wouldn’t come to the ceremony without her dowry of goats and other important assets, right? Apparently, I bring booty.
Ben Stiller involves himself in very funny projects, in which I assume he must have some sort of creative input. He tends ot be the least funny part about said projects, however. But I will concede there must be some funny in there somewhere. Didn’t he WRITE Zoolander? That was very funny. He was not so funny in it.
Whatever. I have conceded I have an odd sense of humor. I got it from my mother, who never liked Peter Sellers, hence I was well into my twenties before I had to worry about the integrity of my innards while watching Strangelove.
December 8th, 2006 at 5:54 am
I think there is a difference between obsess and _think_ about food.
It’s kind of like money. You don’t HAVE to pay off your credit cards every month. Most people DON’T. But you can make a conscious decision and by simply observing trends and behaviors, not go into debt. That’s not obsessing about money, that’s being smart.
Eating is no different. Anyone who tells you different is either lying or selling you something.
December 8th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
am i the only one who has an impending sense of a whole lotta bride speak comin’ our way? i say, bring it on.
i have visited both indie and knot and find them frighteningly intriquing. i believe i speak for the blog when i say, we’re here for you, 24/7, and that patrick, who planned his own wedding and whose wife is still with him (although apparently now estranged from most of her immediate family), in particular is available to inform and guide you and, as the need arises, to talk you off the ledge.
what fun.
December 9th, 2006 at 7:15 am
The Imperial March(Darth Vader’s Theme) is a great march and VERY appropriate for a bride to march to. It sets the tone of the marriage and who is in charge.
I’m sure this trend will be catching on soon.