Thursday, March 06, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Goldberg: Crap-free diet

By Tod Goldberg

Like all the other ladies, I've been trying to slim down via the Atkins Diet, which, for those of you unaware, is the mephistophelean diet of animal proteins and no sugars that produces this primitive shit called "ketosis"--a Latin word meaning "constant, unabated urination"--which thereby causes you to lose a bunch of weight, thus improving your self-confidence and your overall self-image. There's an entire book and worldwide cult that prescribes to this particular way of life, sort of like a weight-loss Scientology based on a caveman's food intake, but I was only doing it because I'm a fat slob.

Today was my last official day on the diet. I'm off to Krispy Kreme. Here's what I went through.

Day 1. Feeling great with my breakfast of eggs and sausage and huge mug of cold water. Am eschewing coffee altogether in order to further my healthy mind/healthy body mantra, plus on the diet you're not allowed to have sugar in your coffee, which is like having sex with an ex-girlfriend: what you expected, but somehow not good. Lunch of eggs and bacon is delectable. Dinner of huge steak makes me feel like I'm changing the world one dead cow at a time.

Day 2. "How many times did you get up in the night to pee?" my wife asks in the morning.

"Three."

"Is that normal?"

"Book says so."

Day 3. Dreams are filled with visions of Oreos. Urination becomes my best source of late-night entertainment. I wake up in the morning and decide that coffee without sugar ain't so bad, as long as you covertly spoon a little bit of honey into the bad boy. How bad could honey really be? I mean, this whole diet is about keeping it Australopithecine-style, only eating what our foraging forefathers could have found, and I'm sure they found honey. During the day, I urinate nine times.

Day 4. I'm feeling a little tender around the abdomen.

"I haven't gone in three days," I tell my wife over my dinner of steak and cauliflower.

"Three days?"

"Yeah. I mean, I pee every five minutes but no action from the other side."

"What does the book say?"

"It says some constipation may occur. But what does `some' mean?"

"Three days apparently," my wife says.

Day 5. I step on the scale. I've lost six pounds. This is the greatest diet ever. I consider jogging, but that seems too interactive. Down below, it's status quo. Imagine the weight loss if I could take a crap!

Day 6. I'm beginning to get very Zen about this whole constipation thing. I imagine never taking a crap again. I imagine writing a book where I create my own crap-free diet, where all you do is sweat and vomit. I imagine that urinating is the new crapping, that soon all the world will stop crapping.

I eat two steaks, a chicken breast and a handful of peanuts during the day and night. I dream I am on a deserted island covered with snack food-filled vending machines but I have no quarters.

Day 7. I've lost 8 pounds.

"This is getting ridiculous," my wife says.

"Look," I say, "it must be working. I've got energy for days, I'm dropping weight and I'm in full ketosis."

"Eventually," my wife says, "you're just going to explode. Eat a bowl of Raisin Bran or something, okay?"

Day 8. I am meat.

Day 9. I purchase a box of FiberCon. I swallow three down with my delicious oh-so-kosher dinner of chicken breast with a side of freakin' pork. I eat two sugar-free cookies that taste vaguely similar to cud. I think about masturbating to the Food Channel.

Day 10. I eat three more FiberCons. I begin to think I have a terrible intestinal blockage that is causing me to lose weight while slowly killing me a la Heather O'Rourke. I urinate eight times. I take my pulse. I eat an In-N-Out Burger Protein Style (the burger is wrapped in lettuce) and drink six glasses of water.

"Still?" my wife says.

"I've lost 10 pounds," I say, as if that is answer enough to my impending death from toxic shock or the curse of Poltergeist.

"I think you're taking this too far," she says. "It's not like you need to make weight to wrestle Mathew Modine in Vision Quest."

I go outside to get the mail. The sun is shining. Birds are chirping. I feel a slight twinge in my abdomen. My second chin feels light, airy, less gelatinous. There's that twinge again. I consider posing for my next author photo with my shirt off. I pause to consider my sphincter. I turn and run. I make it into my house, down the hall and around the corner into the bathroom. I take a step on the bathmat; it slides from beneath my feet. I stumble, fall and proceed to lose a little weight I hadn't anticipated losing into my pants. Two hours and an entire Sunday newspaper later, I end my diet forever.