UNITED STATES—Since writing my own diet book, chronicling my hilarious fat-to-fit journey and culling my diet secrets, to join the towering heap of diets all vying for your undivided, I realize there’s a million diets out there. All YOU have to do it pick out two or three of the million to integrate a plan that works for you. That’s all you have to do to coax positive, lasting change.
Lately, three new diet slants have occurred to me, each worthy of a book. But why wait? After reading these nutty yet helpful notions, in condensed form, you can now choose from a million and three diets. I always urge all those seeking improvement in their lives and diets to take the ideas that appeal most to you and tailor a successful happiness management plan.
JOGGING DIET
You know the cars that dart angrily in and out of rush hour traffic and ride my rear, preceded by a jagged aura of nastiness. OK, take some of that vile energy, and channel it. Say you’re really late, the instant your feet touch the ground, jog the rest of the way to your destination. Who says you have to be in a real rush? Simply start jogging at will to lend drama, fun and punctuality to your life, as well as to exercise. Use your body like that jerk in morning traffic uses his car, as a high-speed weapon, ready for anything.
Jog like you mean it. Show respect for being on time. Be unashamed of speeding up your legs, swinging your arms, and leaving the pack of sheep behind, mired in their sleepy saunter. Big happiness dividends come in flexing your body, being able to speed up on a dime, and reaching your destination greatly relaxed from the breathing and exertions.
BELIEF DIET
If you believe a food is good for you, it will be. Folks, that’s all you need to know. I’ll go it one better: to consciously choose what you believe means going on a “diet” from the surplus of information we are fed chronically by people. Unplug from the beliefs you’ve bought into about foods that are supposed to be bad or good for you, according to the media pulpit. Be free. They could be beliefs about Frosted Flakes, salmon, margarine or wheat germ. Believing that the foods you like is good for you and brings no harm will align your heart and body.
And please shut your mouth and stop giving lip service to whatever conventional food taboo you may be breaking at the moment: follow your heart and stomach. Belief that it is good for you will bring only good to body and spirit. Eat what you like at a given moment and leave it at that.
PEOPLE DIET
Try eating only when you are in the company of people. This could be a body-and mood-changer. Food was made for so much more than fueling our bodies. Food was made to commune. Food is there to give people something to think about when we’re trapped on an elevator for 9 hours. Food was certainly made for more than the two extremes we often go to: starving ourselves for fear of deforming our bodies, and hoarding food because someone, somewhere is starving—which leads to the prevalence of take-home boxes as well as charities that give Twinkies to the “needy.” Nobody needs that.
Of course to my needy friends I say: if you believe what they eat can bring only good, you can practice the belief diet and thus be shielded from harmful effects and digest the love contained in these food gifts—even those baloney-mustard sandwiches mom used to make. And that’s no baloney!
Humorist Grady Miller is the author of “Lighten Up Now: The Grady Diet.” He can be reached at grady.miller@canyon-news.com.
