A Diet That Works: How To Lose 15 lbs. Without Doing a Damn Thing* **

Have you heard the Good News? Well, here it is: throw out that Hydroxycut. Take a Goddamn Stihl to that P90X. Pour the Slim-Fast down the drain faster’n that sweet, sweet crystal you hastily dump in the shitter if so much as an ambulance passes by your burned-out flophouse. Put the Old Evil Eye to that Iron Maiden of exercise equipment: the Dreaded Soloflex. Don’t even get me started on treadmills, ellipticals, and stationary bikes because once I stop, I never start.

Hello, all you diet-and-exercise zealots out there, it’s your Good Rev. Dr. Jay St. Orts, DDS (Emeritus), I have the source here to weight loss for you! I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: I recently lost nearly 15 pounds of unattractive belly fat and ungainly trot-wobble (the Latin: gluteus lardosis; it’s science. It’s boring, but, it’s my life.) in just under 3 weeks, and I didn’t have to lift any dangerous weights, master a single thigh, choke down any sawdust-filled pills, or refuse a single chocolate-covered Potato Bacon Bomb.

“But, how?,” you ask. “Please, you simply must tell me!,” you beg. “MFFFwaaaaaaaah!,” you cry. As you begin to claw weakly at my shirt-sleeve due to acute low blood-gravy levels, I offer you this:

The Good Reverend Doctorb Jay St. Orts Unintentional Diet™! (brought to you by your friends at Idle Hands Laboratories; that extra “b” is for “bargain”!)

No heavy equipment to lug from that dank basement! No more ogling from weirdos at the gym! No more restraining orders or having to find a new gym for your “workouts” roughly every 5 weeks!

Just follow these three easy steps!

• Have faith; trust your heart (and, mainly, much lower organs and systems) to Campylobacter jejunii!

It may sound like the Roman God of Outdoor Jam-Band Festivals, but it truly is not. The only “high” I felt came from a mixture of anoxia and severe dehydration. (“Yeah,” you say,”that sounds about right.” And to you I reply: Stop looking in my windows.)

I don’t know how I got this bug, but all I know is that I’ll never buy oyster stew from a hobo under an interstate overpass in Dothan, GA in the heat of the summer ever again. Ever. I promise this time.

There’s something oddly comforting about reaching hour 36 of off-and-on fevers; death starts to sound like a seductive lover, beckoning as she does with her crypt-smile and killer gams, Lady Death the Coquette.

Then, there’s the nagging fundamentalism of “hast thou shat the very stuff of thy soul through so traitorous an orifice as thy nether-mouth” and other vexing questions of a similar, lyrical bent. You will pray for sweet, sweet death (not unlike ministers of war) as your legs go numb once you saddle up like Eastwood and Git ‘Er Donne.

Finally, when you think it probably gets worse, it does. One of the fever side-effects, of course, is night sweats (well, and day sweats; and sweating generally). I’d wake up having drenched my half of the bed, all my clothes, and most of our bedclothes. You alternately bake and freeze in a thin, noxious gruel of misery until a sick-time hobby of “Pick Your Poison” tantalizes as a solution to this terrible affliction. I’m not sure why, but the fever trumped the other, uh, issue. At least for me. Your mutilage may vary.

Short-story long: you don’t want to eat anything. Anything you do eat doesn’t want to suffer the indignity of digestion and exits the main stage through a trap door, post-haste, as you sing a song of Sophoclean agony in your own one-man Greek Chorus.

Weight loss potential: 1-6 lbs!

• Get all four wisdom teeth taken out and crown a tooth, very quickly (cf. the next bullet item)

On the bright side, I no longer fear anything when it comes to dental work. I imaginatively transport myself any time I’m in that chair and fancy myself Bill Murray’s M to Steve Martin’s S yin-yang in Little Shop of Horrors. My ma always said, “You’ll be a success!”

On the drilling-into-my-jaw/cutting-teeth-out-of-my-precious-misshapen-skull/filing-down-bone dark side, uh, well, …yeah.

Weight loss potential: 3-4 lbs!

• Discover the borborygmic-sounding-but-actually income-hazardous “ERP“

This fairly innocent-looking acronym isn’t as gustatorily onomatopoeic as one would assume. It actually stands for Employee Reduction Program, and I contracted it, too. To put it another way, my job title was reduced in North America and expanded in Asia. To put it a slightly other way, I’m selling a new existentialist mantra of “WhaddaFuckImmaDoNow?!” at all your favorite anxiety inlets and neuroses newsstands. I’ve frantically been tying up all the loose ends I can–taking advantage of every last benefit, like dental insurance, for instance–in an effort to get all I can and all I deserve before joining the ranks of the downsized, outsourced, off-cast, and off-pissed. What a nice gift for the holiday season: the reduced ability to give gifts this holiday season!

I know you can’t see it (except for you. I said get away from my window), but if you have any ditches what need to be dug or holes what need to be filled, I’m pantomiming the “Call me” gesture. I’ve never been afraid to get my *hands* dirtay, erm, dirty.

Ask your HR person–let the magic of ERP work for you! Just let the stress melt away all those unsightly pounds (from your savings account) and inches (of progress made toward a modestly comfortable retirement)!

Weight loss potential: 2-5 lbs!

* Except for contracting a serious food-borne illness, undergoing urgent maxillo-facial surgery, and losing your job

** This article contains language of a frank and explicit, bacterio-gastrointestinal nature, and contains spoilers. As in, you’ll read it and spoil your supper. User discretion is advised. Do not apply to skin that is red, cracked, or swollen.