BEGINNINGS

Having found the motivation to diet, one would think that the next logical step is to start dieting.  One would be delusional.

It is a rare person who walks out of the Doctor’s office and onto a weight-loss program.  For most of us, the transition requires weeks of research followed by a cabinet-level decision-making process, and then a series of arcane rituals more elaborate than the coronation of a British Monarch.

While several of these stages are regarded as mere delaying tactics, the first part of the process is unavoidable – you have to figure out what diet to use.  For the neophyte, this is a process based on practical considerations.  He will look through the available literature, discuss the options with his doctor and family, and make a choice.  Most of us look back at this stage with fond if distant memories.

For the cynical, hard-bitten loser, the existential angst generated by this decision would put Hamlet to shame.  In fact, it’s too bad the whole concept of dieting wasn’t bigger in Elizabethan England – it would have made a great Shakespearean tragedy.

“Whether ‘tis nobler to suffer the base deprivations of Ornish, or to follow Atkins and fore’er forsake carbs…carbs, aye there’s the rub.”

Variety may be the spice of life, but it’s the death of dietary momentum. 

First, you consider all the methods you’ve tried before.  This is an eerily similar process to revisiting past romances.  It’s impossible to look back in total honesty, since the facts have faded with time and memories are distorted by bitterness and regret.  You are confronted by feelings and failings you would just as soon leave buried.  It didn’t work out and yet…

Was it “her” or “me?”  That is, was the ultimate failure due to some inherent weakness in the plan or some inherent weakness in you?  During one diet, you gave up when only a few pounds from your goal and binged your way back quickly.  It sounds like you were the cad, but maybe the system led to unreal expectations. Another time, you lost the weight easily, kept it off for a while but regained it over time.  Perhaps the relationship became too confining or you were commitment-phobic.  The spark was there for a while though; maybe you could rekindle the passion.

In general, I’ve found it’s wiser to start fresh with a new partner.  The less emotional baggage you drag along with your physical baggage, the better.

But at least we have some personal basis for judgment with the routines that have failed us; finding a new diet is often a trek through the jungle armed with a butter knife.  Unless you hold a degree in nutrition, it’s often hard to tell the real from the bunk, the sincere and informed practitioners from the hucksters and charlatans.  For those of us easily blinded by technical and academic patinas, a string of degrees, a bunch of incomprehensible charts and graphs, and a blizzard of footnotes will catch our eye.  For others, a glitzy cover and celebrity endorsement are the lures.  And although we are loath to admit it, we are all susceptible to the promise of quick results with minimal effort and discomfort.

As an example of the sheer weirdness that confronts the potential dieter, let us examine one of the more interesting hooks of recent years; the appeal to the eating habits of our prehistoric forebears, Og and Jane Doe.

"From that time [700,000 years ago] until the beginnings of agriculture (about 8,000 to 10,000 years ago), man lived on a diet composed predominantly of meat of one sort or another...The fossil remains tell us that in preagricultural times, human health was excellent.  People were lean, tall...[and had] little evidence of disease.

Pp. 16-17, Protein Power, Michael R. Eades, M.D. and Mary Dan Eades, M.D.

"Paleolithic people were fit, slender, and active, and free from heart disease, cancer, and many other modern diseases.  Our ancestors were genetically programmed to live on the lean meats...and so are you."

Front cover, The Paleo Diet, Loren Cordain

Let us begin with some minor quibbles.  Exactly how many fossil folks are these conclusions based on?  Ten?  A hundred?  A thousand?  That's a pretty small sample for such weeping generalizations.  Isn't it possible that these specific specimens were found precisely because they were the healthiest and most active among their peers?  How do we know that the majority of cave people didn't die in anonymity because, instead of hunting and gathering, they spent their days eating Paleo-doodles® and leering at racy cave drawings?  And for those lucky enough to have their bones unearthed, why is it assumed that diet was the main factor in keeping them healthy?  Maybe it was the countless hours engaged in their favorite sport, “Run like hell for your life!”

More to the point, why would anyone in his or her right mind make any decision based on how those brainless oafs behaved? TV cartoons notwithstanding, we're not exactly talking about Nobel laureates and Oxford Dons.  These are creatures for whom cleanliness was an unknown and unimagined luxury.  What they ate was pretty much what they found, and I mean lying dead on the ground, not stacked on the shelves of the Olduvai Gorge Piggly Wiggly.  In the absence of the Emeril Legasse, cooking was at best rudimentary, depending on the intermittent availability of fire.  Let us also remember there was no FDA back then; they ate…well, more than food with their food.  Do you really want to use these dunderheads as nutritional role models?

I can’t imagine that “diet” as such had any meaning for them whatsoever.  They lived in an age prior to Elle and GQ, and thus were too ignorant to realize that plague-like emaciation was a "look" to be painstakingly achieved rather than merely a harbinger of hideous death.

We live in odd times indeed when Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governor of California and Madonna is a spokeswoman for Jewish mysticism.  Now I’m supposed to delegate my health decisions to Fred Flintstone.

I seem to have digressed.  Sorry.

For the sake of argument and brevity, let's say that for whatever reasons and criteria we hold dear, we have decided on a diet.  We have the motivation and the plan, so it's time to begin, yes?  No.

For myself and I suspect numerous others, it isn’t enough to simply throw away the cookies and start following the righteous path.  Throughout history, humans have marked all the major and minor milestones of life with ritual and ceremony, and I see no reason why a diet should be any different.

Alas, I have yet to find a culture with a “Start Your Diet” festival or holiday.  In the Western tradition, we have Passover and Lent, but the forbidden foods associated with these times are not proscribed for the purpose of slimming down. There is our pathetic New Years Day when well-meaning but hungover penitents make resolutions of abstinence that are abandoned by halftime of the Rose Bowl, but this day lacks the solemnity and pomposity to be an effective touchstone.  You are therefore free to determine a start date in consultation with any lunatic superstition you wish short of the Delphi Oracle which closed down a few years back. Since there is no shortage of these, you may end up choosing the first day of the week, the first day of the calendar month, the first day of the Summarian month, Columbus Day, Guy Fawkes Day, Tet, Halloween, or Herbert Hoover’s birthday.

The rites observed on “Start Your Diet” day vary from person to person.  I prefer something on the order of the May Day celebrations in the old Soviet Union but without the Politburo and ICBM’s on parade.  There is, however, one ceremony that seems common to all – “The Last Supper.”

On the eve of your start date, an elaborate feast is eaten consisting primarily of those foods that will be verboten during your diet.  These over-abundant meals, tending toward the fatty and the fried, the rich and the sweet, typically result in world-class nausea and heartburn strong enough for spot welding.  The “Last Supper” is less a celebratory repast than a mini-morality play, which allows the penitential dieter to begin his odyssey in the proper frame of mind and stomach.

One problem with this ritual is the near impossibility of satisfying every craving in a single meal.  As a result, “Last Suppers” often evolve into “Farewell Tours” involving month-long treks to every beloved pizza joint, hot dog stand, clam shack, and barbecue pit along the Eastern Seaboard.  It is wise to factor this into your schedule.

Finally, on the appointed day at the appointed hour, with the stars and our fridge in proper alignment, we can begin.