You know you have been there – sitting in the doctor's office looking at the floor, wringing your hands. Normally a happy person, you are being verbally assaulted by your trusted physician, who always seems to be so nice, and this isn't any fun. Your doctor rails on about such topics as high cholesterol, high blood pressures … the list goes on and the voice who normally sounds caring and concerned turns into a low annoying buzz.
What is the problem? You are fat. Go you. You have a desk job; you nibble at snacks all day, come home exhausted and full of no reserve energy. Once home, you are barely able to collapse on the couch and catch the next episode of some random reality show that features either nubile youngsters cavorting around an island living off whatever roots and grubs they can ingest, or enormous people competing to lose weight (presumably from a lifelong addiction to high calorie roots and grubs).
Well, that's no problem at all! Diet! Exercise! Except … you don't have the mental capacity or time to do either. Diet "A" requires you to munch turkey slices 47 times a day, somewhat difficult with no nearby refrigerator. Diet "B" requires you to tote around a special calculator in which you type food information located on every twig you consider cramming down your throat. You end up lost in a sea of Too Much Information. Exercise, the next level of defense against weight gain, fades away as age and responsibility take over your life. The evening walk is replaced by snacking in front of the TV. And so it goes …
So embrace your sedentary lifestyle. Don't lie to yourself – if you can't find time to diet, then you won't find time to jog down the street and back. Thus we come to a common revelation, and subsequently a new twist on common knowledge. The revelation is – you need to eat less calories per day. Your spare tire will not fade unless you calm down on the calorie fest you have been having 8 hours a day at work for the last 15 years. The common knowledge is that limiting your calories by limiting your portions will gradually and safely reduce your weight – but who wants a teaspoon of this, and a tablespoon of that?
Thus, I humbly submit to you The Hot Broth Diet. Don't laugh – it works. Have your two large cups of coffee a day (go easy on the cream and sugar, though). Instead of breakfast and lunch, just fill up a large 32 ounce squeeze bottle with hot tap water and toddle back to your desk. Extract from your desk one jar of stock (chicken or beef or vegetable, your choice), one container of curry powder, and one bottle of Tabasco sauce. Keeping your sodium intake in mind, try to only use a teaspoon of powdered stock in the bottle. Add several healthy shakes of curry powder, and a tablespoon of Tabasco sauce, to your liking. Allow yourself 20 run-of-the-mill saltines per day. After you have finished the first bottle, have another. Try different spices or hot sauces; add vinegar to get asian style hot sour soup. Add Anise seed to try something new. When you get home, have a sensible meal (that is to say, NOT a large pizza, and something low in carbohydrates). Congratulations – you probably just ate between 500-1000 calories less today.
Next, track your progress – weigh yourself once each morning and write it on a sheet of paper tacked to your wall. You will find, over time, that you will shed somewhere between a half pound and a whole pound per week. Slow you say? That is about 26 pounds a year! And all you have to do is dump powdered stock and hot sauce in water and substitute it during the day. Cheap, easy, and sustainable (since you will come to appreciate broth in a whole new way after a few days …) Good luck to you, oh Lazy Cheap Dieter!
