What is it about a diet that will drive educated woman relatively insane? In efforts, often futile, to tame and maintain the female form we are willing to try just about anything if it will take off that last ten pounds. Lemonade diet. Cabbage soup diet. Grapefruit diet. Hell, if you told certain women that they would knock off five pounds instantly by simply soaking in a tub of pig urine for an hour I can almost guarantee they would be stripped down to their knickers and ready to hop in before you could say, “oink.” And why, oh why, do we treat fitting into our “skinny jeans” once again as though it were an event that should merit national attention on Fox News or CNN? What's led to this girdle hurdle?
Once during college, in attempts to lose some of the weight accumulated by my late night ritual of cheese fries at Denny's, I tried the vegetable soup diet. I like soup. I like vegetables (granted I preferred them deep fried but thats beside the point). The diet seemed like a no-brainer. After five days of eating nothing but homemade vegetable soup (essentially watered down broth and a very specific list of veggies) the only thing I had lost was my self respect. I checked the mirror first thing every morning, certain that at least one of my three chins would be missing, but nothing ever changed. Aside from losing a few pounds of water weight, presumably from tears cried at the sight of others eating solid foods, the only change my fad diet gave me was an odd orange tint to my skin courtesy of the obscene amount of carrots in my system. Could I have gone to the university gym for a week and worked out to lose weight? Sure. But wheres the absurdity in that? I’d sooner drink nothing but water with lemon and cayenne pepper for three days. Which, amusingly enough, I did sometime later.
Diets have more rituals than the Catholic church. The Pope himself would be impressed at the time and reverence certain women, including myself at times, hand over to the dieting gods. For example, the night before the diet starts there is always a last supper. This generally carb-laden artery stopping dinner is the female farewell to the foods she will no longer allow herself to eat in order to lose weight. Another ritual is to find your motivational source. Motivation rituals vary from woman to woman. I’ve seen everything from bikinis taped to refrigerator doors, bathroom scales with the word “Fat” emblazoned across it in red sharpie, buying clothing one to two sizes too small and then vowing not to stop until it fits, I’ve even seen collages made from photos of the woman during her skinnier (and if you ask her, surely happier) years. My own personal favorite I learned from a sorority sister when I was a freshman. I place a bathroom scale in front of the refrigerator. If I have the nerve to step on that, read the weight, and still make a grab for the Ben & Jerry's I figure there’s a damn good reason. In those instances its best not to stand between the pint and myself and just hand me a spoon. After all, as I’ve said before, sometimes diets drive educated women relatively insane.
Working out and eating healthy. Calories in equal calories out. Its a lifestyle choice not a diet. All of these saying are infuriating to the dieting woman. Its not rocket science. Eating nothing but celery sticks and drinking a gallon of water per day is clearly not a recommended way to live, at least if you would like a bone density level stronger than your ten calorie cup of Jello. However, I can guarantee you there is a woman out there in the world right now cutting up a grapefruit and rationing out her portion for the day. Why? Because that is all she will be having today. None of this makes sense but it doesn’t stop us. Its the same mangled mentality that has me going through the Whataburger drive-thru and ordering a number six with a diet Coke. Its nuttier than the woman drooling over a loaf of bread because she’s been on a no carb diet, yet this urge to drop weight and drop it quickly has been going on for years. When I was younger my mother was in a constant search for how to shed those last few stubborn pounds as was her mother and I’m sure her mother before her. Apparently with ovaries comes absurdity. Who knew? I’m certain, just as I’m certain that diet pills do nothing but make you shake like a Parkinson's patient, that most women will always share a common desire to lose weight. Blame media pressure to be thin. Blame husbands and boyfriends who don’t understand the concept of gravity and stretch marks or even blame your next door neighbor’s wife who had the nerve to lose ten pounds in a week but won’t tell you how she did it. Be it five pounds or fifty dieting history shows that most anything will be, and has been, tried. In the dieting olympics of womanhood we are all vying to bring home the gold. To win. To triumph over the evils of back fat and cellulite and laugh in the face of love handles. However, its those girdle hurdles that get us every time.
