New Year’s Resolution: A Diet

Pinch me if you’ve heard this before. I resolve to make 2011 a better year by working off the flab and creating a better me.

I know. It’s the same promise I made myself in past years with little or no success. Can I help it if my metabolism tends to betray me?

A visit to my doctor last week prompted this decision. I didn’t dare look at the scale when I weighed in. While looking at the report, he keeled over in his seat.

“Looks to me like you’ve been gaining some weigh since the last visit,” he informed me. “The eight pounds you lost three months ago has returned.”

“It’s the holiday season,” I told him, looking for an alibi. “There’s Thanksgiving and all these Christmas parties. What am I suppose to eat—wheat germ, alfalfa sprouts, and tofu?”

“Have yourself a pizza and cheese cake, but do it in moderation,” he suggested.

So, he read me the riot act and here I go again, just in time for Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and a Caribbean cruise planned for January. Wherever I seem to go, food is sure to follow.

I can never resist a good filet at a wedding reception, like the one I devoured a couple Sundays ago. Or a tempting invitation to a restaurant. If someone else is paying, I’m eating.

Even worse than the diet is the conversation that surrounds one. It makes a bore out of you because you don’t want to talk about anything else.

When I was a high-schooler way back in the Eisenhower Administration, it was fun to attend parties. The conversations used to crackle with wit and intelligence because we talked about ideas—Marilyn Monroe in a pinup and the superiority of beer over barbecue sauce at a cookout.

Go to a party now and the couple next to you won’t talk about anything else except dieting whether it’s the one they’ve just completed, the one they’re on now, or the one they’re going to start Monday following the Sunday dessert table.

Years ago, a fellow figured he was getting too fat when he stood up from his subway seat and was immediately replaced by a couple.

Today, with the science of nutrition advancing so rapidly, there is plenty of food for thought. We hear of diets named after famous people, high-protein diets, low-protein diets, and diets with food that tastes like thin sandpaper.

Once in awhile, a diet will stick in your mind. The best diet I ever heard about was the simplest. Eat as much as you want of everything you don’t like. After awhile, you’ll gain an aversion to food.

At my last high school reunion, I came up with some pretty “round” figures. Since our graduation in 1958, I’d say the class gained two tons. Being rotund was more the fashion than showing up trim and slim.

The glass that cheered certainly wasn’t a full-length mirror. The only part of the body that was light that evening was the head.

I’ve done all I can to keep my weight down. Well, almost. I exercise regularly, enjoy a modest breakfast of cereal and fruit, maybe some hummus for lunch on pita bread, and a fairly substantial dinner. Truth be told, the late-night snacks are my detriment. But the crackers are “reduced fat.” Says so on the box.

My exercise in futility has led me to another approach. I’ve become jolly instead. Fat men are usually happy men, I’ve discovered. Most obese people I know have a fantastic sense of humor and can win over a crowd.

One of my favorite all-time comedians was Jackie Gleason. Another happened to be Oliver Hardy of Laurel and Hardy fame. Somehow, I could never picture either one thin, given their demeanor.

There was the time I chipped a tooth, thus exposing a nerve. I couldn’t chew, much less drink liquids until the dentist was able to treat it. He was booked for a week. The end result was a five-pound loss.

I figure if each of us has the misfortune of coming down with an impacted molar, we might be better off physically. There’s a lesson to be learned here. What you can’t chew won’t hurt you.

So I say, readers, find out why people these days are switching from old-fashioned diets to the modern way: no exercise, no drugs, no weight loss.

And for that tired, run-down feeling, try ordering a pepperoni pizza with a candy bar for dessert. Your new diet doctor won’t complain so long as you pay the bill.

Wish me luck in this New Year. And please refrain from sending any dinner invitations my way.

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Tom Vartabedian

Tom Vartabedian is a retired journalist with the Haverhill Gazette, where he spent 40 years as an award-winning writer and photographer. He has volunteered his services for the past 46 years as a columnist and correspondent with the Armenian Weekly, where his pet project was the publication of a special issue of the AYF Olympics each September.