Holiday Diet Tips

Ho Ho Hopeless.

Here in South Florida Christmas is in the air, with temperatures sometimes dipping below 80, which means homeowners can safely emerge from their homes long enough to set up festive yard displays. Currently the best display in my neighborhood depicts what appears to be a festive Yuletide crime scene:

Evidently what went down here was that Santa Claus, who can be seen crumpled up in the deflated inflatable chimney at right, was stabbed by the Grinch (face down, center) who in turn was antlered to death by the reindeer, who is thinking — you can see it in his eyes…

…that maybe if he puts on a fake red nose the police will think Rudolph did it.

I walk by this yard display several times a day. I’m walking a lot lately, trying to get more exercise, because according to the digital scale in our bathroom — which I step on every morning after I have removed all my clothing and made myself as light as possible, if you know what I mean and I think you do — I have been gaining weight, as shown in this graph:

What could possibly explain my sudden recent weight gain? The main culprit, as we clearly see from the data points on the timeline, is Global Climate Change. But my eating habits could also be playing a role. It turns out — and I frankly don’t understand why the federal government does not require this information to be clearly printed on the label — that even if you rigidly observe portion control by restricting yourself to only the individually foil-wrapped “mini” Reese’s peanut-butter cups, you can still gain weight if you eat more than 80 of them.

To understand the biological relationship between eating certain foods and gaining weight, let’s consider a hypothetical science experiment conducted by hypothetical scientists on identical hypothetical twins named Tim and Tom (not their real names).

First, the scientists place Tim and Tom on a laboratory scale to confirm that they are exactly the same weight:

Next, the scientists place a head of cabbage and a ball of cotton candy on a scale, which clearly shows that the cabbage is heavier:

Next, the scientists have Tim eat the head of cabbage, and Tom eat the cotton candy. Here’s where it gets interesting. You would think that, since the cabbage is heavier than the cotton candy, Tim would now weigh more. But surprisingly, when the scientists weigh the twins again, they discover that...

...Tom is heavier! How can this possibly be?

The scientific answer is “calories,” which are little tiny invisible units of measurement that cause food to taste good. Cotton candy contains many calories, which means it’s delicious, so Tom scarfed the whole ball right down. Whereas cabbage contains very few calories, which is why it tastes like cabbage. So Tim didn’t actually eat any. He took one bite, discreetly spat it out, and then, when the scientists were applying for federal grants on their iPhones, threw the rest of the cabbage into a wastebasket.

What scientific lesson does this experiment teach us? It teaches us that if we don’t want to gain weight, we should not eat anything that tastes good. This is why the average vegan weighs less than the average Stephen King novel. Unfortunately, it’s also why so many of us struggle with our weight: Biologically, our bodies crave high-calorie foods, because we are disgusting pigs for sound biological reasons.

One solution to the weight problem, of course, is exercise, which you can use to “burn off” your excess calories. Let’s say, for example, that one evening at 11:30 p.m. your body, for sound biological reasons, causes you to contact Doordash and order a Family Size box of Cheez-It brand snack crackers. When it arrives, the first thing you should do, as a responsible consumer, is read the federally mandated Nutrition Facts printed on the back of the box:

Then it’s time for you to enjoy a hearty consumer laugh at the insane federal notion that this box contains “about 20 servings” of Cheez-Its. Roughly a half-hour later, after you have singlehandedly polished off the entire box, it’s time to do a little math. If each imaginary federal “serving” is 150 calories, and there are 20 of them in the box, you have just consumed 3,000 calories. And that’s why exercise is so important: You can burn off ALL of those calories simply by walking 50,000 steps! Of course you are no more likely to do that than you are to snorkel to Ireland. So you will need bigger pants.

Another option, of course, is Ozempic, the hugely popular miracle drug that allows both celebrities and regular humans to lose weight easily and rapidly by making everything taste like cabbage. The problem is, Ozempic can be TOO effective, as we see in the Hollywood movie-star community, many of whose members are now so thin that they wear anvils duct-taped to their legs so they don’t get carried off by wind gusts.

Vanity Fair

But enough about eating. The holiday season isn’t just about food: It’s also about people, especially the people who reach out to us at this special time of year to let us know they’re thinking about us. For example, here’s a holiday note our household just received from our Sanitation Engineer team:

This note got a little soggy because it was taped to our Sanitation Engineer can, which is near a sprinkler. But we definitely received the holiday message, which is that the team would not object to receiving a thoughtful holiday gesture from us in the form of money. And they will definitely get it, because (a) they deserve it, and (b) they know where we live.

And now, speaking of people reaching out, it’s time for you thoughtful yet festive paying subscribers to express yourselves.