Yo-yo dieting is as natural to me as breathing. And it's not like my parents created this. They eat like normal people. But for some reason, my 3 brothers and I all have varying degrees of insanity when it comes to dieting. I have one brother who, over the years, has extolled the virtues of both the corn diet and the garbage bag technique. In one case, he eats only corn. In the other, he dresses himself in trash bags and lays prone in the garage attic. In the summer. Another brother has benefited greatly from the "All I consume is Monster and I rollerblade around town all night cause I can't sleep" diet. He has recently become a vegetarian, but all he seems to eat is eggplant and potato chips. The remaining brother is an actor/stand up comedian in LA, and he has been living on a diet of Acai Berry Juice, tuna steaks and Caramello candy bars for the last 15 years. He is so slender he can tuck in a sweater, you know what I mean? He is so committed. We all hate him. (Although, side note, he has this great idea for restaurants and I think its brilliant. Instead of just offering you freshly ground pepper, he thinks they should also offer Redi-Whip. You could just tilt your head back and open your mouth so they could squirt it in.)
All this forced inactivity from my herniated discs has earned me like 8 pounds. I'm lying. It's probably more. And that just won't do, because I am, what my grandmother loving referred to as "assy". (as in, "Here, Dana, I clipped this toning exercise out of Woman's World for you because you're so assy.") Most Polish people are kinda pear shaped, but I take it to a whole new level. I tend to be a size 4 on top and a size 10 on bottom. I look like I am wearing the bottom half of a fat suit if I put on any weight, because it goes STRAIGHT TO MY ASS.
I, myself, tend to go back and forth between what I call the Donner Party Diet and the Christian Bale Diet. Not for the faint of heart, but they are real winners. I thoroughly researched them on the History Channel and EOnline, respectively. I developed the Donner Party Diet one night when the husband and I were watching a documentary on the History Channel on the Donner party. You know, the story about those people who may or may not have eaten each other after getting stuck all winter in the Sierra Nevadas? I recorded it, hoping for some great re-enacted footage of someone eating someone. No such luck. But what I did learn was that they all starved to death, not because there wasn't enough food and game available, but because they were so poorly dressed for the cold that they exerted too much energy hunting for it and starved to death.
I looked at Winston. "That's genius!"
So, what I do is eat a tiny bit less, and couple that with marching up and down Lake Ave in the winter under dressed for the cold. No UnderArmor for me! It works, sorta, and doesn't require me to eliminate nachos from my diet. There is the unfortunate side effect that I may be the first person in Lakewood, Oh to be admitted to the hospital for severe frostbite, but I'm not a quitter.
The Christian Bale Diet I can't really take credit for. Apparently, when Bale was preparing to film The Machinist, he lost something like half his body weight subsisting only on apples and coffee. If you have seen it, you will remember fondly the scene where he shows his abs. I swear you can make out his spine. From the front. Abs like that usually only come around in times of worldwide famine. There are many more side effects from this one, namely:
1. Jittery and Freaked Out.
2. You Will Nap A Lot.
3. Like Every 3 Minutes. All Day.
4. Don't Plan On Doing Any Higher Level Functioning
Personally, I maintain that there really wasn't a script for The Machinist. The studio just put Bale in a sound stage with a supply of apples and coffee and told him he had to lose 100 pounds. Then they filmed the process.
I also like to add to both of these groundbreaking diets a little add-on I call the 300 Workout. There is this great video on YouTube called the 300 Workout, where they show how all those guys in the movie 300 got so ripped. They were flipping truck tires. I am a little person, so when I called my dad and asked him for a tire to flip, he gave me a tire from a 63 Chevy with the rim. (He also never asked me why. Hmmm...) Neighbors started coming over, asking me if I needed help moving that tire somewhere. It was difficult to explain what I was doing. Because as it comes out of my mouth it sounds like crazy. And I have mentioned the herniated discs, no?
So, thank God, it's finally snowing here. I am off to put on some shorts and a hoodie and march down Lake Ave. I've got to burn off all this coffee and apples.
~dana
