welcome to the dieting for tummies twelve step program

yes, it starts early.

o.k. it's all here. everything I want you to know about diets, dieting, weight loss, eating, exercise, and lipsuction

I have no qualifications for writing about weight loss, except that I am losing weight and I'm the only one here who can type. The Tummies Twelve Steps should not be construed as dietary or medical advice. They just appeared to me one day in my alphabet soup. Before you start a diet of your own, you should consult your doctor and your dry cleaner. They may be looking for a diet that works.

Warning: Please remove all contents from your mouth and nares before proceeding. I know this is hard, but I can't be responsible for the coffee you spit all over your computer screen and keyboard. Check your warranty anyway. You might be covered.

And now, The Dieting for Tummies Twelve Steps

1. Bad food is smarter than you.

2. Sugar is king.

3. Bread and pasta are queen.

4. Processed meat is not a treat.

5. Salt and sodium have you shaking.

6. You never learned to like fruits and vegetables, did you?

7. You never learned to drink just water, did you?

8. Don't eat with your mouth full. Don't say you aren't.

9. Do you think you would you die if you felt hungry once in a while?

10. You aren't exercising. Don't say you are.

11. Weigh yourself every morning. In your underwear. In the front yard.

12. Do it for the long haul. It's worth the weight.


If this seems like it's going to be too much and you just want to lose five or ten pounds real fast and then gain it back, you should just visit your doctor. I did, and sat in the waiting room next to a bloke who was coughing and blowing snot bubbles. I caught his cold, couldn't eat for a week, and the pounds just fell off. And the state paid for the whole thing.


yes I know it's the year of the pig. don't e-mail me on this

we stepped up to the plate so you don't have to

to paraphrase Mark Twain

"I didn't have time to write a short blog entry, so I wrote a long one"

alright, it's opposite day and I actually took the extra time required to write a short twelve step program so you wouldn't have to slog through another god-awful diet book just to help make the author's next boat payment.

one or two of you will manage to grasp the essence of the tummies twelve steps and run with them. congratulations. you can stop reading now. but the vast majority will require a lot more and I guess I knew that. I confess I was trying to do this the easy way, but now it looks like I am going to have to do some work. To complicate matters, I can't attend to this blog as much as I would like because I only get an hour of recreation a day and most of that is spent outside.

so, for those of you who prefer to lose weight by mastering the scientific principles underlying excess adipose reduction processes rather than just eating less bad food, I shall herewith take the trouble to elaborate upon the tummies' twelve.

even then, most of you will click away from this blog in your endless search for the worlds best diet book with the wackiest bet you can't find these ingredients anywhere recipes that take forever to make.

now, to poorly paraphrase Lee Iacocca, "if you can find a better diet book, eat it"

step 1: bad food is smarter than you

and it knows
how to find you

so prove me wrong

historical perspective
In earlier days, primitive peoples toiled from sunrise to sunset to either find, grow, or kill their own food. Because it was the dawn of time and the knowledge base was limited, people routinely made senseless blunders, such as killing the food they had just grown, or eating substances we now know to be non-food items. Imagine. There were no grocery stores. Lines at the few fast food spots in existence back then were long, and customer service was almost as bad as it is today. (to be continued... someone's coming)

read this reference to environment and evolution at scotsman.com

The point is that food was hard to come by and it was pretty basic. People weren't too smart, but neither was food. Food hadn't yet learned about the food heirarchy and it didn't much care who or what was eating it. Fast forward to today. Things have changed and that's why I had to write the Tummies Twelve Steps.

All matter can be divided into three groups: living, non-living, and food. You and I are living matter. Non-living is assumed to be non-food. Food is living matter that has temporarily lost that designation and now exists in a limbo-like state of suspended animation. It wants more than anything to regain its former status as living matter and will stop at nothing to get it back. It could easily do that by being eaten by bugs or worms or even bacteria or fungus, but then it would be re-entering the food chain at the lowest levels and would have to work its way back up. Why should it do that when it can enter at the top? That's where you come in...

some food has evolved over time and has become much more adept at getting you to eat it, rather than being eaten by lower life forms. Over the millenias it has learned to morph itself by joining forces with sugar, flour, fat, salt, and various other substances and prizes in ways that make it smarter than you. it has also managed to become fast, ubiquitous, super sized, and cheap. bad food has duped even computer savvy internet accessing blog reading virus protected you into thinking that fries and a drink make a meal deal.

read "heavier weight tied to poorer mental functioning"

do I need to make a list of all the foods that are now smarter than you?

only lowly fruits and vegetables, languishing in the produce sections have failed to keep up

but you don't have to worry. you are still smarter than them and the dirt they were grown in

a word about aesthetics

take a spin around the neighborhood in your 4x4. don't worry about the gas. are you pleased with the visual impact created by all the fast food places. pretty isn't it. would you like to see more. if you and your friends just keep going every day your wish will come true

step 2: sugar

help I've been cane enabled

in the beginning there was sugar. and it was good.

but it's a cereal killer

go to any grocery store and enter the boxed cereal aisle. read some nutrition labels and see how many cereals you can find that don't have sugar as either the first or second ingredient. I did this and it really frosted me

see? sugared cereal is smart cereal. it has evolved and it is smarter than you and it knows how to get you to buy it and eat it. sour cereal is old world and it sits alone on the shelf hoping that maybe the noodle bugs will find it.

a twelve pack of soda may not be smarter than you, but what happens when it gangs up and becomes twenty four? and puts itself on sale for less than water? nothing in your high school curriculum prepared you for that, did it?

need another lump?

our latest research shows that it now takes just one smart cookie to outsmart you

sugar has no equal. so face it. sugar is king. that wouldn't be so bad, but you are pawn. check and mate

step 3: bread and pasta

doh!

we've got your buns

flour is nothing more than sugar gone sour. try this experiment. I tried it and was amazed. put some powdered sugar on a plate and then put some flour next to it. notice that they look and feel identical. now take a taste of each. See?

now take a ravioli from your freezer and boil it for a while. put it on the table and when it cools poke it with your finger. next, poke your stomach. if your stomach is softer than the ravioli, put the ravioli back into the water. repeat this procedure until the ravioli is softer than your stomach. if the ravioli never gets softer than your stomach, you may be drinking too much liquid and you better stop poking yourself.

go to a nearby all you can eat pizza buffet to observe. bread as the entree. sweetened bread as the dessert. spaghetti and garlic bread. free drink refills. smart food keeps getting smarter. patrons keep getting, well, less smart. while you are there, observe eating styles. but use your noodle. are these the kind of roll models you want?

bread is queen. and you've been rooked

just remember to stop and drop your roll

step 4: processed meat

wild pepperonis once roamed the great plains, feeding mostly on nitrates and nitrites.
odd looking critters, no one thought of eating them until the chevy cavalier made pizza delivery profitable in the latter part of the twentieth century...

sometimes you can buy meat in a bucket or a can or in tightly sealed plastic wrap. just make sure your spam filter is turned on

what's at steak?
ok. I know you're going to eat meat. just make sure you only eat animals that were vegetarians. that should be healthier

even President Bush says we should limit our pork spending

here's the result of our latest web search: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it probably hasn't been processed yet

no eso queso

while we're here, what about cheese food product. there is cheese and then there is cheese food product
you are free to choose the one you want. but you don't need to be a wiz to know that cheese stands alone

disclaimer: nothing written herein regarding cheese or cheese food products shall be considered legally or otherwise binding

step 6: fruits and vegetables

put the tivo on pause and go to your usual grocery store. stand in an aisle where you feel safe. ask someone to show you how to get to the produce section. then ask the manager or a trusted employee to go there with you, holding your hand if necessary. don't try to buy anything yet. if you are afraid, remind yourself that you are smarter and more evolved than anything you will find there...

these are primitive foods left over from the old world order and are pretty much what the ancients had to either find or learn to grow. they don't make your taste buds pop so modern people and their even more evolved children know to leave them alone. unlike today's foods, they haven't kept up with evloution. they never learned how to keep lower life forms from eating them first. that's why the bugs fly around them. they are doomed to languish forever at the bottom of the food totem pole.

Q. but what about E.coli?
A. lettuce spray. B. how many times have we told you to get a clean petri dish C. blame the wild boars

great. now you will never eat fresh spinach. bad food is smarter than I thought. it knows how to leek to the press. Is sweet pea next?

I'm going to level with you. we are living in a bacterial world and we are bacterial boys and girls. the bacteria got here first. they approved our arrival and they want us to stay because they don't have cars and we help them get around. and besides, they don't mind riding in our back seats

until we get the green light from the FDA and nobody ever gets sick again from anything, I'm going to recommend that you do what popeye did and sautee your spinach with olive oil. then go punch bluto

Q. does raw milk have E. coli too?
A. don't have a cow. then you won't have to worry about it. anyway, milk is a dud unless you're a calf

step 5: salt

a diet for all seasons

OK. maybe we did come from the sea. and it was salty. but that was a long time ago and you should have gotten over that by now

go to your grocery store and look at canned soup labels. see how much of your daily allowance of sodium is in there. do some math. now imagine how much sodium you are getting at your favorite all you can eat buffet, after you've gone back for the third time and before you've been asked to leave. and had your picture posted in the lobby. with your eyelids stuck shut.

the buck stops here...

try this. wait until hunting season is over and go to a salt lick after dark. shine a spotlight on the deer. then have a friend shine a spotlight on you while leaving your favorite all you can eat. If you leave without paying, you may be able to get the police to shine the light for you. it's the salt that gives you that startled look.

if you aren't afraid of salt why are you shaking

step 7: water

sounds pithy, but water you thinking?

I'm not the first one to say this, but did you know that of all the creatures on earth, people are the only ones that drink anything other than water... okay, cats drink milk, but look how they act at night. I can't help you with your legal problems if you insist on drinking anything but water.

exception: five or six espressos in the morning is okay. I think that's what Socrates drank.

skip to my loo
some diets tell you to drink 64 ounces of water a day. do what you want. but if the office restroom is always busy, take your hair dryer to work with you. and be prepared to stand on the bus ride home

a tip of the hat to our readers who remind you to set the hair dryer to medium

step 8: don't eat with your mouth full

know your eating style

try this experiment. throw a piece of baloney over the fence and watch how your neighbor's pit bull eats it. study his technique and practice doing the exact opposite. if he was too fast for you, just throw the whole bag over. anyway, it's best to let baloney enter the food chain at the dog level...

alternate experiment. if your neighbor had two pit bulls and they killed each other trying to get the baloney and you didn't catch their eating style, you can try this experiment. after eating a satisfying meal, go to a nearby all you can eat buffet. just order a coffee or tea because you won't be hungry. sit down and unobtrusively observe the eating styles of the other patrons. practice doing the opposite....

in rare cases your neighbor may actually get to the baloney before his pit bulls do, or maybe get there at the same time and then beat the dogs back. I would try to make friends with this guy

eating is about style. and most styles I've seen aren't very pretty. evaluate your styles. determine which ones are bad and which ones are just disgusting. eliminate the bad and disgusting ones and replace them with good, decent, reasonable, mannered, and civilized ones. and keep the consulting fee you would have paid me to do it for you...


tips to improve your eating style...

a. some diet geniuses recommend writing down everything you eat. Are they going to pay for your carpal tunnel?

b. try putting just one piece of food in your mouth at a time. a small piece. chew slowly. notice the taste. chew it up good like nobody ever told you when you were a kid. swallow. wait a while before eating the next piece. chew slowly. whoa! I didn't bite my tongue

c. where are all fingers?
don't panic. being addicted to finger food doesn't mean you should just throw up your hands

d. how big do you think your stomach is anyway? and how big would you like it to be?
go to any restaurant and order a main dish. when it comes put it in a resealable plastic pouch and tape it onto your stomach. there. you've just saved yourself a couple of steps. now go back to your tivo (you thought I forgot)

late breaking news...
you are the cause of global warming...
and now the cracking of the polar ice shelf...

the air going into you is high in oxygen. the air coming out of you is high in carbon dioxide and methane. the ratio of these two exiting gasses varies from person to person and is determined by factors that lie well beyond the scope of this blog. suffice it to say that both of them come out hotter and more polluted than the air going in. you aren't going to like the solution I have in mind so just keep eating and breathing as you usually do. but don't exacerbate the problem by swallowing extra air with every bite

speaking of bad air...
you have the right to remain silent...

get to know your O-zone. this is an opening near the bottom of your face that is apparently getting bigger. it has been determined to be the source of your problem in more ways than one. things won't get better until it closes up. anyway, keeping it shut will help conceal your bloodied tongue and maybe even keep you off the evening news

step 9: hunger

leptin means
never having to say you're hungry

yes, momentary hunger is an unpleasant feeling. but how do you like feeling bloated all day? how does it feel to realize that burritos with cheese are smarter than you? but without the cheese you are about even.

try this
stop eating right now and put the triple bacon cheeseburger down. wait a few minutes and then resume eating. but before it's gone, throw the rest of the burger into the trash. now break into your small groups and talk about what it was like for you. did you go back later to look for it?

the deadly combo
impulsively eating at the first rumblings of hunger is like flipping on the TV when you first get bored. maybe that's why you always do them together. watching food ads. and spilling everything on the couch. we have work to do, don't we?

and now a word about TV
your ancestors dating back to australopithecus afarensis spent their evenings in front of a roaring camp fire. They gazed in states of wonderment as the flames lit up their caves and entertained them with bright dancing swirls of color and a variety of mystifying sounds. they slugged down chunks of ribs, roots, and grubs, and when they could eat no more, flung whatever garbage was left into the burning embers. your TV is that fire. little has changed since then. except that your TV throws garbage back at you. while you laugh. and pay a monthly fee

now, for a limited time DFT will send someone* to come to your living room and throw garbage at you for substantially less than what you are currently paying your cable or satellite provider. check your local listings

will I need to use my will power?
no. just keep eating whatever you want whenever you want it. look you aren't going to change and I don't feel like fighting right now. bad food is always going to be within easy reach and you are always going to be hungry. what do you think is going to have to happen

and hoodia think is going to have to do it

can I cheat on the DFT diet?
absolutely. I'm not going to ask you to change your usual way of doing things

remember, you always have the right to change your mind...

coming soon...
how to back out of a fast food drive-thru after you've ordered but before you've paid


*employment opportunity

looking for smiling, friendly faces
flexibility in ambiguous situations a must
some heavy lifting involved. bilingual a plus

step 10: exercise

I have never been too keen on exercise. Every time I do it, water comes out of me and I have to put some more back in. But, all the experts say we have got to do it, so in deference to them, and in keeping with my commitment to offer a complete program to my readers, I have included here most of what I think you need to know about the subject.

sounds goofy but look what happened to pluto

If you want to walk, go ahead and walk. If you want to run, I am not going to stop you, unless you have scissors. But there's something I've been wanting to say for a long time and now is the time to say it. When you walk and then flutter your arms real fast as if you are running so as to make people think you are working up a sweat and probably training for the olympics, all you are doing is putting your body out of sequence with itself and you are destabilizing the harmonic balance of the earth as it rotates on its axis. It might not matter much if it was just you, but our monitors have been noting for some time a dramatic increase in this pernicious practice and it has got to stop before something terrible happens, like losing another planet.

exercise is boring if all you do is repetetive movements. you need to either play a high risk game so you don't realize you are exercising, or come to my house and pull weeds. if you decide to pull weeds, make sure you get the ones by the bee hive. Playing loud rap music will help the time go faster. It will also make my neighbor think twice the next time he refuses to bring me my mail.

late breaking announcement:

the DFT second annual meet'n'greet running with the bulls has been postponed indefinitely. you spoke and we listened. look for our latest brochure which upgrades this activity to intermediate level. also, we have a number of red jumpsuits at drastically reduced prices. most worn only once. by poor sports. anyway they were already half off when we found them

coming soon...

how to outrun a swarm of fussy killer bees without working up a sweat
(due to the dearth of information available on this topic, your ideas are welcome)

we know the only reason you've read this far is to get in on our contest. so here it is...

not a sting operation!

win a free jar of honey if your idea is selected and published. you will need to gather the honey and fill the jar yourself.
bring your own four ounce jar and tweezers.

limit one jar per entry. family* and affiliates of DFT not eligible. void where prohibited**

*wink


**this is code for you 64 ounce water drinkers

get ready for our next contest...
think you've lost more weight than any of our other readers?
send an e-mail telling us how much you've lost. claims of over 50 pounds should be accompanied by before and after photos
indicate the phase of the moon and tide level at final weigh-in. no photoshopping please. write "big loser" in the subject line

all entries must be notarized by your dry cleaner

a word about contests

If you weren't so greedy, you wouldn't be so easily fooled. You have to understand that voice recognition software isn't quite there yet. Anyway, we apologize to any and all of our gullible "winners" whose feelings were hurt during our free Toy Yoda giveaway contest.

and now, one final exercise tip: join our lost souls club andwalk a mile in someone's shoes
this will save wear and tear on your own shoes. also a mile should tell you how well the shoes fit and by then they will be yours

one last exercise tip.
1. find your old exercise equipment
2. dust it off and use it for more than a clothes rack

one more exercise tip.
1. look at your exercise equipment
2. then look at yourself in the mirror
3. can you tell which one is the dumbbell?
4. which one is most likely to get picked up?

Q. my feet get sweaty when I exercise. are there special socks I can wear to prevent this?
A. sorry but we can't answer that here. if you leave your name and pin number argyle call you

step 11: weigh yourself in your underwear in your front yard

some of you have already started to balk at this.

it's called an alibi, kids. you can't see the forest through the gump, can you?

look, just print out the above twelve step program and keep it in your wallet. you never know when you might find yourself in your underwear in your front yard, or in front of city hall for that matter. this single document alone could arguably do more to enhance your legal defense than all the fast talking lawyers in philadelphia. not to mention saving your job.

high weigh
you wouldn't drive across the desert without a working fuel gauge and you wouldn't speed past the state police barracks without a functioning radar detector, would you. that's because you recognize the need for an effective feedback mechanism. you simply have to know how much you weigh in order to know how well you are doing.

my weigh
weigh yourself every morning after you've been up a while but before you eat breakfast. that will be your base weight for the day. you may find it interesting to weigh yourself again at night before you go to bed. the difference between these two weights will give you a range that will prove useful.

no weigh (think outside the boxers)
always weigh yourself in your underwear, or at least clothes of consistent weight so that your clothing does not become an issue while you are evaluating your progress. make sure you are wearing more than just your underwear when you go out to buzz the barracks, especially if you sometimes forget your radar detector.

preparation for weigh-in day
without getting too technical, just know that the gravitational pull of the earth decreases the higher up you go. also, are you aware that your body is about 70% liquid? and that the force exerted by the moon on the oceans is powerful enough to draw them back from their shores?

we do the hard calculating for you (not to be construed as legal advice)
extrapolating from the above, our analysts have determined that your lowest possible weight can best be achieved in your underwear while standing on top of the highest building in town, possibly in high heels, after consuming large amounts of liquid during a full moon at low tide. remember that the U.S. consitution gives you the right to bare arms and probably legs too, but that's all.
copy this tip on the back of your business card and keep it in a safe place.

step 12: for the long haul

take your ideal weight and subtract it from your actual weight. that's your food quotient. i.e. how much smarter bad food is than you. your job is to get to the point where you can say you are at least as smart as a dum dum

it takes time to gain weight and it takes time to lose it. relax. unlearn your bad eating styles. learn some good ones and practice them. the tummies twelve steps are about leveling the playing field between food and you. soon you too will be marching to a different beet

you still don't get it do you?
you're asking what's wrong with eating things I like? look. there are three kinds of eating

1. the way you eat (adds weight)
2. dieting (unpleasant deprivation)
3. healthy (this is the one you want)



in response to some of your decidedly intemperate e-mails, I am no longer endorsing the prune diet.
listen, the whole idea behind dieting is to lighten up. I told you to consult with your dry cleaner*



editor's note: send e-mail inquiries to dietingfortummies@gmail.com**

write: "this is not about the prune diet, I promise" ***
in the subject line of your e-mail to make sure I read it.


* I never said the runs was an exercise

** salacious e-mails will be kept confidential unless the heat is turned up on me

*** if you think this will fool me you are going to need to get up a little earlier each morning

eatright 2006 by dieting for tummies
no part of this document may be eaten wihtout the written consent of the author









don't show me this again







you're addicted to the light coming from your computer screen







and your fridge







it's the primordial campfire