A GUIDEPOST REPRINT: “DIET OF THE DECADE,” 31 MAY 1991
Guidepost cover, 31 May 1991
ABBREVIATED REPRINT
DIET OF THE DECADE
31 May 1991
Are you frightened by the thought of swimming pools and topless beaches? Do your clothes seem to shrink with every wash? Yes, there’s no doubt about it – you need to go on a diet! Every magazine seems to be promoting its own confusing diet just now, but don’t despair! Guidepost has contacted the leading experts on dietary research from around the world, and produced a diet which is computer-designed and scientifically tested to suit YOU the Guidepost reader; a diet so adapted to your natural body needs and mechanisms that you won’t even know you’re following it! What’s more, because it is completely natural you know that it is safe, and because it comes with the Guidepost recommendation, you know that it works. After only a few days you will feel yourself much lighter, and more able to climb stairs, run across the road, or jump over piles of rubbish on the pavement. After a matter of weeks you will be jogging everywhere, and never have to take public transport again!
HOW DO YOU GET FAT? THE GUIDEPOST DOCTOR EXPLAINS.
Why do people put on weight? A question much easier to ask than answer. We at Guidepost are lucky to have our team the world-famous Doctor Frank N. Stein, an expert on the subject, and author of such works as “First Steps Towards an Introduction to the Study of Accelerated Weight Loss Through Nutriment Exclusion” (George Burns University Press) and “How To Diet in Forty Days” (Pinky and Perky Press). We asked him to explain.
“People get fat if their comestible or beverage consumption is in excess of the capacity of the body’s metabolism to process. Therefore, in order to lose weight effectively, we must eliminate consumption, STOP EATING COMPLETELY. After twenty days or so, you will look much thinner (though there may be some associated drowsiness). If you survive to forty days (the average length of time that one can do without food before dying), you must be close to your ideal weight. At this point in time, you can start to eat regularly again, but not too much, otherwise you will have to repeat the above process all over again.
We tried to contact some people who had tried the doctor’s diet, but found that all of them had died. “This is unfortunate side-effect on which I am doing much research at present” the doctor explained. “We are nearly there.”
WHICH DIET?
Although the Doctor’s diet has not been perfected yet, we thought that the importance of his theories could not be discounted in any future investigations. With the insights gained from his work we decided to take a look at some of the more common diets available, and see how they measured up. We found that they all had important defects.
The Acupuncture Diet
The Chinese art of acupuncture consists of harnessing the energy, or “chi”, which passes in invisible channels around the body. This is done by sticking needles into the body in the right places. The diet works by finding the place at which all the “chi” lines converge, and sticking the needle in. In this way, the body draws on the tremendous reserves within it, and is able to use enough energy to cook a Thanksgiving turkey, in only a few seconds. The advantage of this method: you can eat as much as you like, and simply burn it off by a visit to the acupuncturist. The disadvantage: the point at which the needle is inserted is almost exactly where the heart is, and death often results.
The Alcohol Diet
Drink as much as you like but you can’t eat anything. If you start drinking at breakfast you feel so bad that after a few days you can’t drink anything, and you lose weight spectacularly. Disadvantages are frequent nausea and permanent liver damage.
The Cocaine Diet
This one is fashionable among the jet-set. Cocaine suppresses the urge to eat, while maintaining alertness. Great for party-goers! If taken in sufficient quantities, weight loss is quick and permanent as long as you keep taking the powders. Disadvantages are cost and not knowing when to stop.
The Cold Diet
Everyone knows that when you are cold you burn more calories to keep warm. What could be more logical than keeping cold in order to lose weight? The advantage is that it is cheap. (Think of the savings in clothes and heating!) The disadvantage is that you will tend to fall ill.
The Food Chain Diet
This is nature’s own way of combining food. Every meal consists of meat or fish, but you also have to eat all the animals and plants which have been eaten by the animal. This can be a little tricky in the case of fish (spawn, algae and suchlike are not easily found in supermarkets), and a little nauseous in the case of meat and birds (have you ever eaten grass, worms or insects?)
The Mars Bar Diet
Eat as many Mars bars as you like, but nothing else. The advantage of this diet: on the first day you won’t feel hungry. Disadvantage: after the first day you’ll feel very sick.
Nature’s Own Calorie Burners
Some foods actually use up more calories in being digested than they give to your body. A stick of celery is worth five calories, but it takes fifteen to digest. A simple calculation and calorie counter will tell you how many sticks of celery you need to neutralize all those calories you have eaten in the rump steak you had for lunch. Unfortunately, this probably amounts to some 24 pounds.
The Raw Food Diet
You cannot eat anything that has been processed. In order to maintain a balanced diet eat everything that you would before, but in its raw form: for example, instead of bread – raw wheat; instead of paella – raw rice, shellfish and chicken, with uncooked sprinkling of salt, saffron, wine etc. A few days of this and you’re thin. The disadvantage is severe stomach disorders.
THE GUIDEPOST DIET
Our research has shown us that diets falter when they show disregard for psychological (the cocaine diet) or medical factors (the cold diet), but above all when they allow people to eat food. Although people think that they are hungry when they don’t eat, in fact this hunger is the result of mainly physiological factors. Another Guidepost collaborator, Doctor E. Dipus explains:
“Hunger, as laymen call it, is in fact the result of a repressed infantile need to suckle the mother. When we grow up, this essentially sexual desire remains, but is channelled into what we call hunger. The desire is associated with our mouth, and so we think that we want to eat. Any diet must take into account this fundamental fact of human nature.”
The last expert we consulted was Mac Donald, the famous American chef. “You can’t separate food from the way it is presented,” he said. “People expect variety, and the meal to be served in a certain order. If they don’t get this, they never feel satisfied, no matter how much they eat.”
We can truly say that this is the first diet that has taken into account the insights from the fields of medicine, psychology and cookery to provide you with the final word in modern diet planning: the Guidepost Diet. By using a seven-day diet plan we have eliminated the minor problems with Dr. Stein’s diet – i.e monotony – by rotating the ingredients weekly. Every seven days you are back to day one! We have taken into account the profound psychological basis of hunger, and allowed a great deal of sucking in the diet. And we have provided a variety in the foods you are allowed to eat, which build up by the end of the week into a complete nutritionally-balanced meal.
Day 1 NOTHING
This is the first day of your diet. You have to prepare your stomach for what is to come.
Day 2 WATER ONLY
Our bodies are 60% water. Let’s keep it that way.
Guidepost back cover, 31 May 1991
Day 3 TOOTHPASTE
Toothpaste can provide the body with as much as five calories.
Day 4 APPLE
Suck on it only. No nibbling!
Day 5 EGG
Eggs are extremely nutritious. Boil one until hard, then shell and suck whole. Take it out of your mouth when you get tired, but take care not to break it. Those who have small mouths, or who want to lose weight particularly fast, try a quail’s egg.
Day 6 HERBS AND SPICES
Something a little tasty to brighten up your week. Chew for as long as you like, but don’t swallow!
Day 7 TEA AND COFFEE (BLACK, NO SUGAR)
A treat for all you caffeine addicts, and the perfect end to a meal, and to the end of a week in your diet. Go back to day one.
If this diet is followed carefully, after two weeks your clothes will not fit you any more, and after five you will feel a different person, and look one too!
PROOF THAT IT WORKS
We asked an average American family to try out the revolutionary Guidepost diet, and the results were spectacular. Mrs Ann O’ Rexic explains:
“My husband, myself and our four children have been on the Guidepost diet for five weeks now, and it has changed our lives incredibly. I wouldn’t say that we were an overweight family, but we used to own 3 large Cadillacs if we all went out together (one person in the front, and one in the back). Not only that, they had had to be convertibles – that was the only way we could get into the car. Now we need only own a Mini – all six of us can fit in with ease.
“The money savings are enormous. We need buy very little food, as some is recyclable – the apples for example. My husband and I can share our children’s clothes; and even when using the Metro, we can all fit through the barrier at the same time! Other advantages: when we locked ourselves out of our house last week, I simply slipped my daughter through the air conditioning vent; and when we travel abroad, we can save a great deal of money on flight tickets by simply putting the kids into the suitcases. Yes, Guidepost diet has certainly changed our lives, and our looks!”
You too can see your whole life change as the pounds slip off your body. And when somebody asks you how you managed, tell them – You saw it in Guidepost!
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Images
Breastfeeding/Al van Akker via Flickr, CC BY2.0. Partial face block supplied.
Suitcase and child/Quinn Dombrowski via Flickr, CC BY-SA2.0
