IT'S THAT TIME OF THE YEAR

It’s that time of the year when I decide to go on a diet. This year I want to be so thin, there is a fear of me falling down the drain when showering. I want to hug people and bruise them with my cheekbones. I want my friends to say 'We're worried about you' when they are in fact, secretly jealous. I want to eat a grape and be full. This of course never happens, but this year, it feels different. But the question is, which diet should I choose this year?

There was the very expensive dietician of ’99 who charged me an absolute fortune so that I couldn’t afford food. I’ve always thought you should dress for the job, and in a dieticians case, weigh in for the job, so when I found her to borderline obese, I didn’t trust a thing she said. When I went for my weekly appointment and hadn’t lost weight, she sighed, gave me a face like I had just run over her puppy, and marked my chart with red pen. I mumbled, ‘I’m still thinner than you Fatty.’ and cancelled all future appointments.

Then there was the Fatkins diet of 2002. I gave up alcohol, caffeine, sugar and carbs. I spent a fortune on Dr ‘I will make you thin but boring’ Atkins bloody books and went against my vegetarian principles and started eating farm animals. Bread was the enemy and caffeine-free tea that looked like urine replaced my Sauvignon Blanc. I suffered through it for a month and was declared the most miserable person on the planet. I also managed to gain almost ten kilos and severe bad breath.

The shrink wrap diet of 2004 goes down in history as one of the stupidest things I’ve done in my lifetime. The Single Sidekick and I had seen a product advertised on Verimark. Promising us vanishing centimeters, rapid weight loss and thighs the size of toothpicks, ultimately leading to a fulfilled and happy life with adoring men and jealous women, we were hooked. We had visions of being half the size we were, people weren’t going to recognize us and we would definitely have to buy new clothes. We dutifully smothered our bodies with the fat burning cream and wrapped ourselves from the neck down with industrial sized cling wrap. We then lay down on the bed and shouted ‘Let the thinness begin!’ What they didn’t tell you was that the cream plus plastic whips up such intense heat that we began to turn puce and started to sweat like a sumo wrestler in the Sahara. The only thing we managed to lose was our dignity when the Single Sidekicks very hot brother walked into her room to find the two of us lying side by side on her bed like two large chipolata’s on a braai.

A particular stinker was the Weigh Less diet which I attempted to reverse the effects of Fatkins. Having to attend soul destroying weigh in’s, facilitated by an obese Nazi, in a depressing hall, was bad enough, but when they told me to cut down on my alcohol intake, I told them to piss off.

When I gave in and went to see a skinny dietician, she explained that one glass of wine was equal to one carb. I was allowed five carbs in a day. Thinking I was very clever, I would starve myself the entire day and then have five glasses of wine in the evening. Five glasses of wine on an empty stomach led to complete obliterated drunkenness which in turn led me to the nearest McDonalds because I was so drunk I forgot I was on diet.


If you have any wonderful diets for me, please let me know. Otherwise I’m going to only eat food that starts with W. Watermelon, watercress, wasabi and wine. I’ll be falling down drains in no time.