Have you ever noticed the slick, glossy covers lurking on store racks luring us to buy magazines? What tantalizing topics hypnotize us?
Juicy gossip about the newest Hollywood glamour couple? The latest scandalous divorce? Whereabouts of the latest political sex offenders?
The number one topic trumpeting from 90% of magazine covers is weight loss. How to lose weight is a more popular subject than who will run for president in 2012. Later this year everyone will know who the candidate will be. By then even more people will want to lose weight.
Fresh from TV-land emerges the popular, winsome, toned Dr. Oz. He is as slim as a praying mantis and just as revered.
I was addicted to his show as I would be if I were a Twinkies or Yodels addict. If I couldn’t watch the show I taped it and watched it later instead of preparing dinner.
Then he Oz-ified the show by adding segments describing the most important foods to add to our diets.
Naively, I once thought a bowl of cold cereal with sliced bananas and skim milk was a good, nutritious breakfast. But now I know that by adding wheat germ, flax seeds, chia and hemp seeds I will glow with good health. My hair will shine, my teeth will whiten and my knees will think they’re 25 again. Top this with fresh berries, pumpkin and sunflower seeds and I can expect to be congratulated by Willard Scott on my 100th birthday.
But does Dr. Oz have any idea of the caloric costs of these additions? He expounds more revelations: “Nuts are amazing!” Now my day is incomplete without ingesting at least twelve cashews, two brazil nuts, handfuls of almonds and scads of pistachios. And a few walnuts. And to keep my heart healthy I must include dark chocolate. I have added approximately 3,076 calories by gaining so much health. And that is only the solid food portion.What about liquid accompaniments? “Oz Law” dictates three or four glasses of calcium a day. These can be in the form of milk, enriched orange juice or a Singapore Sling with a calcium chaser. Red wine is heart healthy too. So I pour, twirl and sip some of that brew strictly in the interest of good health, strong heartbeats and a remarkably sudden cheerful disposition.
“How about mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks?” he asks. I dutifully follow his instructions at the cost of adding another 5,895 calories to the day’s intake.
At my next physical exam my doctor is impressed with my routine test results. But with great concern he warns, “You’ve got to lose all the extra weight you’ve put on this year.”
Now you will find me in front of the magazine rack, intently reading the headlines of those slick, glossy magazines previously mentioned. I continue to look for my right answer, right diet, and right guru.
There really is such a thing. Here’s what happened this morning to prove it.
MorristownMemos 