On Dieting

Our body, we are taught, is very, very smart.. a miracle, even! The human body, says science, is a wondrous apparatus with brain and viscera capable of digesting or disposing nutrients when it has had enough. Ingest too much vitamin C and our bodies turn into professional organizers.

“This is no longer needed, flush it away.”

But pull up to a Burger King drive-through or peek inside the fridge at 11 p.m. and see what happens. Ingest one too many extra-biggie-size Value Meals or that last piece of stale cheesecake and our bodies turn into raised-during-the-Great Depression pack rats.

“Wait.. don’t throw that out. We may need it someday.”

My doctor explained it this way: (Insert Middle Eastern accent)

“When you diet too fast, your body starves like a family without money. Once you start eating normally again, the family remembers the days when it was poor and hungry. The family hoards every calorie it can, being Very Careful not to spend too much in case it ever happens again.”

Obviously, doctor has not lived in the U.S. very long. If the above were true, my internal family would be spending every spare calorie, even going into caloric debt taking fabulous vacations, driving snazzy cars, wearing fashionable department store clothing that did not come off the clearance rack and residing in a beachfront home in some exotic locale.

And I would weigh 80 pounds.

Sigh.

 

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