Where's the Beverly Hillbillies Diet anyway???

I am so mad right now that if I weren't afraid my daughter might read this, I'd probably swear. Not any of those nice, neat swear words either. I'd let fly some of the really bad ones like they used in "Sideways"...which by the way was the absolute worst movie I've ever seen in my entire human life. I don't care what the Academy Awards snobbies thought.

Here's the situation. Because I am feeling so tired lately and because I look like a forty-one year old mother-to-be, I visited my doctor to have my thyroid levels checked again. After describing to her this God awful exhaustion I'm experiencing lately, she and I had a nice conversation about what she referred to as my "lifestyle".

"I really recommend you try the South Beach Diet", said my size one nurse practitioner. "We're all going to die someday, and I personally want to die healthy. This diet can do that for you."

This is without question the single worst advertising slogan for the South Beach Diet I've ever heard.

"Try the South Beach Diet today because let's face it. You're going to die no matter what you do. Why not die skinny?"

So today while I was getting new tires on my Ford Bogus, I picked up a copy of this wonderful book that is going to make me die skinny. I couldn't wait to start reading it and after my car was finished, I pulled into Sonic and tore into it while I ate my tater tots and foot long Coney.

Don't worry. I had a Diet Coke.

The beginning of the book basically goes into a lot of mumbo-jumbo about health and sugar and carbs and how if you eat sugar and the wrong kinds of fat, you might as well just put a 45 in your mouth and get it over with now.

I didn't care about that stuff. I wanted the facts, Ma'am. Just the facts.

WHAT CAN I EAT????

I skimmed to the back of the book where the menu plans are for Phase One. In case you don't know, that is the phase where you chew on tree leaves and eat chickens whole...feathers and all. (Not the beaks though. The beaks have too many bad carbs in them.)

What I read there is the source of my aforementioned anger.

Apparently I am supposed to eat things like: Smoked Salmon Frittata, Artichokes Benedict and Hummus. Dear Lord in Heaven. I'm a southern woman! I don't even know what those things are.

I'm supposed to have 6 ounces of vegetable juice cocktail and an asparagus and mushroom omelet for breakfast. For lunch, something called Salad Nicoise. And if I get hungry between meals, I can stuff myself with cherry tomatoes, but only up to ten of them.

This can't be right, I think. Surely there are more "normal people" foods I can eat. So I hop on the old internet and snoop around to see what other people are eating on this diet. I can't be the only person in the universe that thinks this is nuts.

Can I?

Well let's see here. Lots of people have online diaries to keep track of their weight loss with the South Beach Diet so it isn't hard to find out what's going on out there.

One lady wrote, "I was so full from my breakfast of tomato juice and egg substitute that I completely skipped my mid-morning snack".

Another wrote, "Even though I really wasn't hungry, I ate my afternoon snack anyway just like the book says to do. I had 10 nuts...which I had previously sorted out into baggies so that I wouldn't be tempted to eat more."

Is there something wrong with me? Am I the only person that thinks I will absolutely go mad if I try to live off low-fat turkey sausage and 2 tablespoons of peanut butter? I will kill someone. And I mean that literally. I will actually kill a small person and eat them. I know I will. Especially if they are wearing flavored lip gloss or lotion that smells like coconut.

Who eats like this? Granted I'm a typical redneck girl, but I can tell you that I don't know one single person that even knows where to go to buy Hummus, much less what it is. For all I know there are little furry Hummus animals that live in tiny stalls and have big old pretty eyes. I'm sure as heck not going to eat them. In fact, I'm going to get a bumper sticker made today that says, "Free the Hummuses".

I hate it when society "pretends" like certain things are completely normal. Everyone is acting like the South Beach Diet was handed down by Moses and worse yet, that no one is starving to death.

Come on, people. Let's talk about the pink elephant in the room. You're hungry. You know you are. And you don't like Artichokes Benedict. No one likes Artichokes Benedict. Nobody in their right minds would eat that, unless maybe one of those "Die Hard with Bruce Willis" villains was holding your puppy hostage. And frankly, it would have to be a really cute puppy.

I don't know what to do. If only there were a Beverly Hillbillies Diet. That I could do. Bring on the biscuits and the sorghum, baby. I could do with a little possum belly, so long as I could wash it down with the "rheumatis medicine". Can't somebody NORMAL create a diet that contains things the everyday human might actually eat?

I'm through ranting for now. Besides, my Good Humour bar is dripping on my keyboard.

Jealous???


Copyright © 2004, Sherri Bailey
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