An Iconoclastic Health Plan for the Epicurean Dipsomaniac

Just the thought of dieting, if your like me and drink a great deal of beer, is about as appealing as a bad case of scabies. We feel the same enthusiasm for dieting as we feel for prostate examinations.

Let’s face it; if you're a serious beer drinker, then chances are you eat like a troglodyte, ie., anything that is remotely edible, preferably fried, smoked, seared and slathered in butter. You’ll never hear the serious beer drinker order the "Chilled Beet Soup with Buckwheat Noodles and Moroccan Lentil’s." Dieting and temperance wouldn’t be natural to us; much like the prostate examination is not natural to us. It would be torture. And we are bombarded with beer every where we look; magazine advertisements, grocery stores, we even have reptiles and amphibians hocking it on TV and radio. It’s unthinkable. I mean what else could you possibly drink when dining on buffalo wings or pizza? I know there’s a lot of you young studs out there who chow down anything you want and quaff down the brew to your hearts content, but you simply can’t do that forever. Most of you will end up looking like Homer Simpson by the time your 40. I’m here to tell ya. I was well on my way to building that Homeresque physique. Just the simple act of bending over to tie my shoes was about as burdensome as running a 10K in July wearing a back-pack filled with Sumo wrestlers.

Something had to be done, I could procrastinate no more. Sure, I know what some of you are thinking; I’ll just change over to light beer when I hit my mid-thirties and perhaps cut down on the burgers, maybe I don’t need to "super-size" it every time. This will be your downfall. First and foremost, you don’t need to be drinking that wussy light beer. It’s not real beer, damnit. I believe, and no I can’t prove it, that they are putting estrogen in the stuff. It is also my opinion and many experts would probably agree, that light beer has been known to A: Shrink the testes. B: Lead to other wimpy drinking proclivities such as white wine or those god awful wine spritzers. C: A fondness for the musical offerings of "The Backstreet Boys." Is this what you really want?

Do not bother looking into any of the new, banal though fashionable diets out there, such as that dreadful "low carb high protein" nonsense. Because alcohol is a no no and so are french fries. You can’t eat white bread either, and it’s pretty damn hard to eat a bacon double cheese burger without the bun. That smacks of dietary extremism. And the abstinence part is Draconian. Ben Franklin once said, "There can’t be good living where there is not good drinking." Come on, didn’t this guy invent electricity, or the kite or something like that? What ever it is he did, all I know is that he is an inspiration to me. And with that inspiration, I formulated a diet that has had such positive results on me, that I am prepared now, out of the goodness of my heart, to drop this bombshell on this whole full-of-shit dieting industry.

You simply drink scotch. That’s right, put the beer away for a couple of weeks and drink scotch instead. Scotch whiskey obviates the need for beer. The average beer will contain 150 calories and the calorie count goes higher in a lot of those darker European and microbrewed beers. Yes, light beer only has about 100 calories, but so what. You could wake up one day 15 years from now wearing your wife’s underwear, maybe not so overweight, yet wearing women’s underwear nonetheless. I know what your thinking, your worried about waking up 15 years from now wearing a kilt. No need to fret, kilt wearing is a cultural anachronism seen only in parades. Even if you did get the urge to wear a kilt you’ll have a hard time finding one in your wife’s underwear drawer.

So let’s crunch the numbers. Scotch whiskey contains only 104 calories per one and a half fluid ounces. That’s 46 calories less then beer. So if you swill down a 6 pack a day your taking in at least 6,300 calories a week. However, with 6 healthy belt’s of scotch a day it’s only 4,368 calories a week. That adds up to roughly 1,932 less calories every 7 days just by switching your adult beverage . Now, the average person can burn 588 calories per hour when running. So just by simply drinking scotch instead of beer, it’s equivalent to over 3 hours a week, of actual running. Or you saved yourself from running 3 hours a week; it depends how you look at it.

You know you won’t hear this from radicals like Jane Fonda, Oprah or Richard Simmons. Also, one of the good things about scotch is you don’t have all those gastronomically related occurrences that you normally have when drinking beer. This should certainly make you much more inviting to the delicate sex. Not to mention, there’s a lot less peeing involved with whiskey drinking. Now of course I’m quite aware of the trend toward those expensive single malt scotches and they are great, nevertheless your standard middle or top of the line blended scotch whiskey is just as good. Naturally, you may substitute any other kind of whiskey in place of scotch, a good bourbon does the same trick. As for food, you eat nothing but Belgian endive salad with sesame vinaigrette, sun dried tomatoes and rosemary croutons. Only kidding. You eat whatever the hell you want to eat; though only twice a day.

What works for me is I have a big breakfast with eggs, bacon, sausage, pot roast, left over pizza, whatever. While at work I eat nothing but fat free cracker’s or cookies. Sure that might sound a bit oppressive and the food envy will kick in when you see all your fat ass co-workers feasting on everything under the sun, yet there is a way to get around that.. Smoke a cigar. Just go out to your car and fire up a stogie. A good cigar will take up your entire lunch hour and I know I don’t need to tell you that tobacco has zero fat or calories. If cigar smoking is just out of the question (you probably look forward to prostate exams) then lolly pops will do just fine. After work you can scarf down anything but make sure there’s a time span of at least 6 hours between the time you feast and the time you go to bed. You must also try to avoid fatty snacks whenever drinking. Potato chips can easily be replaced with fat free saltines, but if you have to have something with a little more punch, then dig into a bag of fried pork skins.

This is yet another thing those health creeps won’t tell you; pork skins average 5 grams of fat per serving and potato chips can average 10 grams of fat per serving.

Does this sound all that hard? It’s all very simple and it works. You’ll drop 5 to 10 pounds in the first month and feel just great, especially after 2 or 3 scotches.

Sure, every now and then you can enjoy a beer or two on the weekends, it won’t kill you and you’ll learn to appreciate it in a way you never had before. Obviously this diet is not for everyone. If there’s a chubby 10 year old in your family, he or she should probably seek a more conventional weight loss plan. Still if this sounds like a plan for you, and you know who you are, then give it an earnest try. As far as dieting goes, it could be a lot worse.