From ‘You Idiot’ by Nate Gangelhoff

America has long struggled to find a diet that allows one to eatpounds of bacon and barbeque potato chips while at the sametime avoiding any physical exertion more strenuous than wobblingfrom couch to bathroom to car.This epic search has proved to be mostly fruitless, unless youconsider Hostess Cherry Pies to be “fruit.” But, thankfully, thereare a number of programs and pills and praying techniques outthere that give it a shot, and in this special issue of You Idiot,we’ll take a long, hard investigative look at them.

There are

a number of questions to consider when choosing a diet program– what is the amount of exercise the participant should get each day? How manycalories are allowed? How many carbs? Will I be able to lose 40 pounds whileremaining sedentary and continuing the consumption of fudge? While these areall important things to ponder, people in the diet business long ago realized thatthe last one is the most relevant question, and have gone to work attempting toanswer it.And, given that the most successful way to lose weight (I’m no expert, butit’s probably something like: exercise, eat healthy food in reasonable portions, andkeep the calorie and fat intake down) does not answer this particular question in a

From ‘You Idiot’ by Nate Gangelhoff

satisfactory manner, people trying to make money in the field tend to get creative.I mean, if my goal was to sell books, I would feel less confident releasing the“Broccoli and Pushups Diet” than I would the “Florida Keys Mayonnaise and Car-Driving Diet.” So, since there are enough people out there who both desire moneyand giggle at the concept of ethics, we witness a flood of programs that are morethan willing to pitch outright lies and scams to the populace, promising impossible weight loss schemes under the guise of not having to change one’s food intake orexercise level.Still, even if we can pinpoint why these “plans” spring up in the first place, we have to tackle the question of

why do they work

? How on earth can some of these operations make money? My only guess is that it might come down to thedeeply American desire to Believe, to Believe in the ugly face of logic. Man in suit promises something? Sounds good! If I wish

really

hard I’ll lose weight and havemy dreams come true? Right on!Or, maybe not. ere might be some completely diﬀerent explanation for why the industry thrives. Perhaps people are just really, really lazy. To ﬁnd out, let’stake a look at some of these fantastical, magical diet programs!

Do Nothing!

e punk band DOA once released an album entitled “ought Minus ActionEquals Zero.” e title, presumably, was saying that you need to back up yourideas with action, lest they be merely academic and, in the grand scheme of things,irrelevant. Saying “doing X and X and X will help end poverty” is all well andgood, but if you don’t actually act upon X, X, and X, or at least inspiresomeone else to act upon them, nothing will change. Youreffective contribution is, well, Zero.Lame, huh? But wait! ere’s another way in which we can view DOA’s equation. If X minus Y equals 0, then X = Y. Put another way, if Joe’s Height Minus Bill’s Heightequals zero, then Joe and Bill are the same height. erefore,if the equation is viewed this way, ought and Action areeffectively the same thing.is is (I assume) the exact opposite of what DOAmeant, but I think it’s a world view that is probably more popular than theirintended “do something!” If people are lead to believe that the same end result canbe achieved by either putting forth effort, or not putting forth effort and merelythinking about effort, I’m confident a sizable majority would choose the latter andgo watch television.Author Debbie Johnson realizes this as well, and she puts the theory to usein her remarkably interesting self-help book, “How to ink Yourself in: eNo-Diet, No-Will-Power Key to Success in Body Shaping,” a 55 page manifestothat dispenses entirely with pesky notions like “exercise” and “eat less food” that

From ‘You Idiot’ by Nate Gangelhoff

annoyingly clutter the pages of most diet books.Let’s look at an excerpt:

“e subconscious is an extremely powerful a vehicle [sic] within us which caneasily control the body’s weight… Your subconscious mind believes everything youthink, say, and feel! You can lie to it all day long and it will believe you anything you tell it. It’s very gullible. e good news is, you can use this to your advantage.Tell it you are thin and beautiful!”

Amazing! Take that, stupid brain! And how did Johnson stumble across thismagical power? Well, aer declaring “No more diets”, she then

woke up one day realizing I could “think myself thin.” Aer all, I had thought myself better jobs, better places to live, new furniture, and a great new car, whynot a new body, too? I walked over to the mirror, looked into it and said, “Youlook great. Not only do you look great, you look a little thinner today!” An do you know what? I actually started feeling thinner in that very moment.

Johnson’s faith in her new delusion-based dietary system strengthened asthe days passed, and she was emboldened when visiting a doctor a few days later,almost telling the nurse to “go take a hike” when they tried to weigh her. Whenthe nurse then “had the nerve” to tell her she could stand to lose a few pounds, Johnson dismissed the advice immediately. “In whose book?” she scoffed. “I wasenjoying life, eating whatever I pleased. I knew that if I just kept my imaginationfocused on the goal, with a sure confidence, I’d be there before I knew it!”Interesting stuff. I mean, it’d be one thing if Johnson declared, “You know what? I feel good about how I look and I like eating what I want to eat, so I will. ” at would make sense, and be a completely reasonable decision to make.However, she clearly is saying in her book that thinking yourself thin doesn’t make you just “Feel” thinner in some abstract way, but that you actually will

get

thinner.And, furthermore, that while doing all of this inking you are free to consume whatever you want in whatever quantities you desire.is is, obviously, a bit bolder of a claim. In fact, it’s a little, what’s the phrase–“fucking insane”–so you naturally might be thinking that there has to be a “foodsto avoid” section somewhere later in Johnson’s novel, a faint ode to moderationthat reels in the excesses the opening of the book seems to allow. I mean, noresponsible diet book would actually say you can eat whatever you want in any portions you choose, right? Wrong! “ere is no such thing as ‘illegal’ or ‘oﬀ limits’food with this plan,” explains Johnson. “Have you ever noticed that the word diethas the word “die” in it?” Hey... she’s right!And this is basically why “How to ink Yourself in” works so well—it peddles not in the tired language of “calories” or “food” that annoyingly clutterthe majority of such books, instead relating to the reader how you should “feed”