Die-yet?

I always stay away from diets…obviously; the first few letters of the word are D-I-E. But I seem to know a lot of people who seem to have no problem whatsoever going claiming to go on a diet. And it is sheer coincidence that they are all women. Just to set the record straight, this is not a sexist post, but then again guys rarely make a big deal out of going on a diet. We make a big deal of other unintelligent matters like ‘Will the Indian cricket team play with 2 spinners and 1 seamer or the other way around’.

I have friends who tell me they have become as large as a cow. And when I do meet them, they resemble nothing like a cow…or even a calf. And quite frankly, it is very condescending to call yourself fat in front of yours truly and weigh only half of what I weigh. And don’t give me the whole, “dude it’s a relative thing…” nonsense. Then why do you have shirts sizes like XS, S, M and L, and have hardly any XL and XXL sizes stocked up. (Shoppers Stop does not sell shirts larger than size 44.... I have not shopped there since 2010) There should probably be a category called ‘gravitationally challenged’ and the smallest size in that should be an XXL.

Coming back to the point, these very people who claim to be on a diet abuse the poor word and cheat on it far worse than Bill Clinton on Hilary. Take this friend for example who from the time I know her has been claiming to be fat and on a diet. This involves having watermelon and buttermilk 3-4 times a day. But that is only from Monday to Thursday. Weekends are reserved for biryani, pizza and all the other divine food in the world. And yet she wonders why she isn’t losing any weight. The same friend comes along to a Chinese restaurant and does not allow yours truly to order the cashew nut chicken because of the calories, but has no problem with chopsuey. Am I the only one who sees the pointlessness of this so called diet?

Take example of another acquaintance who claims to be on a sugar free diet, except on birthdays, festivals and weekends. Barring the ice cream, jalebi, gulab jamun and other sweetmeats on those days, it’s a no-no sugar day, which is probably one day in the week. And yet claims they are on a diet.

The word ‘diet’ among women has seems to have reached the same whore-like status as the word ‘strategy’ among MBA grads. While I don’t want to take away credit from the serious dieters who have been blessed with a far stronger will power than I, I just think a vast majority of women are being unfair to them by claiming to be on a diet as well. I once went on a diet….6 months of no sugar, no fried food, no alcohol, no non veg except chicken, and I did manage to lose about 15 kilos. And it was tough business. This was back in the day when I was a little stronger when it came to will power. And THAT was a diet, considering my staple diet was chicken steak, chocolate mousse cake and cold-mint ice cream….EVERY DAY!

A diet is like the role of a mother. There are no off-days, there are no breaks, and there are no weekends or festivals. It’s a 24 hour struggle against temptations like gulab jamun, long island ice tea, pani puri, pepper chicken steak and oh so much more. Anyway, all this talk about food has made me hungry for a chocolate brownie, maybe with some vanilla ice cream. (Somewhere a diet-faker just thought to herself,” ice cream….hmmm….the chubby one might be right, it is time for ice cream. Besides, it’s the weekend.”)

On an unrelated note, one of our lovely (read skinny and brain dead) Indian models, Vanya Mishra won a ‘Miss Multimedia’ award at the Miss World. Since when the devil are they giving pageant contestants awards for sitting on Facebook? Of all the categories that include Beach fashion, performing talent, sports & fitness, beauty with a purpose and more…. We won the title for someone who spends most of her time uploading videos on YouTube and liking people’s inane comments on Facebook. (We could have excused her if she were following this blog… correct no!?!?!?!?)