Here is the lesson of the Pizza Diet: There is nothing that doesn’t suck after 3 days straight of eating it.
In fact, the problem with the Pizza Diet is one of expectations. When you go on, say, the grapefruit and cottage cheese diet, you know it’s going to suck and when it does it’s no big deal because it’s what you expected. But with something like the Pizza Diet you think, “Hey, this won’t be so bad, I love pizza!” But eventually it does begin to suck, there’s no way around it.
I learned a valuable lesson though. Don’t go into any diet thinking it’s going to be easy or enjoyable and then you won’t be disappointed when it is neither. My friend has a dieting philosophy that you should make things as hard on yourself as possible. I think this is a pretty sound philosophy. Consciously trying to make things hard on yourself is a form of play. Think about it. If you have thirty logs that are fifty pounds each that you have to move from point A to point B, you are going to do it in the least challenging way possible because it’s work. But with a game, you consciously try to make things more challenging. We all do it; it’s human nature. There are many versions of solitaire, some which you can win virtually every time, but in the most popular version — Klondike — you very rarely win, but people play it all their lives because they like the challenge. Similarly if you decide you’re going to move thirty logs without using your hands, then you’ve taken it out of the work realm and made it into sport, and I think even if it’s tougher it becomes more enjoyable. In essence that’s what I’m trying to do with this whole fad-diet diet I’m on. Make the weight loss process more difficult than it needs to be by sticking to arcane, idiotic diets, then take pleasure in that process. Like Mary Poppins said, “You find the fun and snap, the job’s a game!” Finding the fun is never about taking the easiest way out, it’s about testing yourself.
The Pizza Diet was a challenge, but I went into it thinking it was a treat and that’s where I screwed myself. Live and learn.
