It’s hard to laugh when all you’ve eaten is broccoli (broccoli is evil!), but Vikki Claflin presents some diet humor that’s worth its weight in chocolate. Mmm, chocolate…
It’s official. I hate dieting. When you think about it, the entire premise of a diet is just wrong. Diets work like budgets, which is another ridiculous concept. Both are all about deprivation.
The first thing budget experts have you do is write down everything you spend money on, then immediately tell you that you can’t buy those things anymore. We’ve just reached our first crossroads. If I could resist these things, I wouldn’t buy them, in which case I wouldn’t need you to tell me not to. But since I can’t resist them, there’s no point in telling me I can’t buy them, because I’m going to anyway, and now I’m a loser with fabulous boots. (I’m on my 3rd accountant. The first one quit the profession and is now teaching P.E. at the local middle school, and the second one shot himself. My current guy doesn’t return my calls, but rumor has it he’s still in town.)
Diet experts tell you to write down all your favorite foods, and then tell you that you can never eat them again. Ever. Yeah, no. If I liked broccoli, I’d eat broccoli, in which case, I wouldn’t need to be on a diet. Since I hate broccoli and I love chocolate, here we are, back the Deprivation Gulch.
Since dieting as most of us know it (join a program, stick to it, and there you go, lose weight) is obviously not for me, this year I decided to make little changes, in the hopes that they would eventually coax the recalcitrant scale numbers to budge downward. Since my biggest struggle is sweets, I started shopping for smaller portions of my favorites. But Sara Lee doesn’t sell one cookie or one slice of cake, so this often means buying the smallest size available, eating the piece I originally wanted (thus satisfying the craving), then throwing the rest away so I don’t pork it all down in one evening just because it’s in the house.
A recent sweet attack sent me scurrying to the local bakery for one of those “individual size” German chocolate cakes (for 2+ individuals, but only if you share…Bahahahaha!) Gently warmed half of it, and topped with Tillamook Vanilla Bean ice cream. OMG, Rapture, suck me up now.
Staring at the remainder (and realizing that 2 more glasses of wine would make that baby mine before bedtime), I tossed the rest into the garbage and walked away, thinking HA, I got this down. Alas, deciding to diet WHILE FULL is like deciding to quit smoking while putting out your “last one.”
Got up the next morning and thought “Hmmm…” Kenny came into the kitchen while I was bent over the garbage and said, “I know I’m going to be sorry I asked, but what the hell are you doing?” (I thought about lying and saying I was getting ready to take the garbage out, but we’ve been married 13 years. I couldn’t sell it.) “I’m looking to see if the cake I threw out last night has touched anything disgusting. If not, get a fork, because I’m getting it out of here!” “Oh for God’s sake,” he replied, “Get your coat, and we’ll go buy you a new piece. But THIS time, put the leftovers in the freezer.”
Okay, that could work too.
Read more from Vikki Claflin on her blog, Laugh Lines
Vikki Claflin
“Vikki is an author, humor blogger, public speaker, and former newspaper columnist. She can be found in "Life Well Blogged, Parenting Gag Reels," available at Amazon.com. She has been regularly featured on Erma Bombeck's Writer's Website and Better After 50 online magazine. Vikki shares her most embarrassing moments as she comes to terms with middle age, and she laughs as hard as we do. So pour the wine, grab your Spanx, and check her out at Laugh Lines!
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