Dietary Delight

'Tis the season for Resolutions! You surely all know by now that I love Resolutions, and I'm pleased to say that I went through my 2018 Resolutions today and found that I achieved (or at least made good progress toward) most of the goals I set for the year. I'm also a big fan of lists, and since one of my best motivational tricks is to put something I've already completed on my lists so I have something to check off straight away, I also achieved several retroactive Resolutions that I didn't even know about until now. I am winning so hard this year!

Know what I didn't do? Again? Lose a shit-ton of excess weight. It's almost a recurring joke that I put it on the list each year, and it really is a recurring joke the mental efforts I take to avoid the actual efforts involved in attaining this particular Resolution. I've noticed a few fallacies I'm particularly prone to, and from that compiled the following fun list of diet personalities. (And by "fun" I mean uncomfortably close to home and possibly offensive. Per usual.)

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The Last Supper: "Might as well enjoy food while I still can." And by this you mean all the food, as if you are stockpiling calories for the end of days. Oh wait - due to a neat trick of biology, you can stockpile calories! Expect to gain 10lbs before you even get started on your diet.

The Spring Cleaner: "Get this shit out of here!" If it's not in the house you can't eat it, right? Ahh, now your cupboards look like the rejects aisle at the food bank - nice! Not necessarily a bad approach, unless of course you live with other people who are not on your diet. And who emphatically do not want tinned lentils for an afternoon snack. Expect to lose 2lbs off your rolls and 20 points in the polls.

The Conscientious Objector: "I can't let all this perfectly good food go to waste..." Of course you can't! Much better it goes to waist instead. Expect to gain 5lbs, and probably be on Hoarders one day.

The False Starter: "Okay, for really real this time!" Except you can't start on a Sunday - that's family dinner night! But Monday was just so hard this week, and what kind of monster starts things on a Tuesday? By Wednesday the whole week is basically a write-off... you'd better just start fresh next week. Expect to gain a rather perplexing* 5lbs** this month.
* I mean, all you ever think about is dieting, how can you be gaining weight?!
** If combined with a tendency to Last Supper-ing, gain 10lbs.

The Eclectic: "This one will work for sure!" You've been simply passionate about every fad diet and food trend that has ever existed. Like, ever. You own a bewildering number of oddly specific small appliances - juicers, blenders, fat-free fryers, grillers, shakers, makers, bakers, takers, and partitioned toddler plates for adults (?) - your pantry rivals Bulk Barn in its selection of obscure ingredients, and you could open a Museum of Modern Health Trends with the 30-year retrospective of home gym equipment languishing in your basement. Expect to lose 5lbs now, gain it back in a month when you lose interest, and have no friends because your constant proselytizing is freaking exhausting.

The Intellectual: "Ugh, paleolithic peoples would totally have eaten bananas if they were available!" You have acquiesced to the fact that you need - well, not 'help', exactly, more like 'inspiration' - to kick-start your diet, but you can't help but dwell upon the fallacies and flaws of each plan you look into. It's just that you're so much smarter than diets! Expect to lose the same 20lbs over and over until you either die of a heart attack or gain some humility, whichever comes first.

The Old Timer: "I'll just keep doing what works for me!" Would we be having this conversation if it were truly working? And are those ankle weights? Expect to lose 5lbs, but at the steep personal cost of consuming a lot of cottage cheese and Diet Coke.

The Perfectionist: "As soon as I'm not so stressed out..." Or maybe when the kids are all in school, or when your back doesn't hurt so much, or when Jupiter aligns with Mars. Whatever it is, it is clear that conditions must be absolutely perfect in order for you to ingest more fibre. Congratulations, here's your 5lbs.

The Princess and the Pea: "It's just so hard because of my [insert multiple conflicting conditions of varying credibility here]." Hey, have you ever heard of the Paralympics? Actually, y'know what, never mind. Just take your 5lbs and go. 

The Theist: "Please, baby Jeebus!" Remember kids, the Lord helps those who help themselves, and He did not mean to seconds. 5lbs, honey. Next!

The Optimist: "Welp, New Year and Orthodox New Year were busts. Good thing for Lunar New Year!" Expect to lose 2lbs, gain 5lbs back celebrating the latest flip of the calendar page, and start again - all with a smile, somehow.

The Pessimist: "Honestly, why even bother?" With that attitude, you're exactly right. Expect to gain 5lbs. Of course.

The Realist: "Honestly, why even bother?" OMG, so true! Here's your 5lbs. 

The Sailor: "Fuck it." Is this also Pessimistic, or perhaps Realistic? Either way, I totally agree. 5lbs.

The Polycephalist: Any or all of the above, in whatever combination suits your needs at the moment. Personally, I tend to run about 25% each Last Supper, Spring Cleaner and Old Timer (CICO my dudes!) with varying degrees of most of the others, depending on my mood. Let's not talk about the weight gain one might expect when employing this particular combination, k?

Finally, we have...   

The Metabolism: "I guess I'm just naturally thin!" Listen, this entire post was designed to be so profoundly unrelatable to you that you could not possibly read this far, so it is not my fault if you are offended by my saying what the other struggling 99% of humanity is thinking when you say shit like that in January: please fuck off.

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Happy New Year to all my dear readers, and may all your Resolutions become realities this year.