Dieting Sucks

Dieting: The Art of Starving While Surrounded by Food

By Mike Walk

Let’s talk about dieting, which is the process of deliberately denying yourself food while living in a country where every gas station sells nachos with cheese sauce that has the same chemical composition as lava. Dieting is not a new concept. Cavemen dieted, but they called it "not being able to find food because there are saber-toothed tigers around." Today, dieting is more sophisticated, involving apps, influencers, and something called "keto," which I think is short for "ketosis," a medical term meaning "your body is screaming at you to eat a bagel."

The first thing you need to know about dieting is that there are approximately 7,439 different diets, each claiming to be The One True Path to Thinness. There’s the Paleo Diet, where you eat like a caveman, meaning you consume only things you could theoretically hunt or gather, like grass-fed bison or organic kale. This sounds great until you realize cavemen didn’t have access to Uber Eats, and their life expectancy was about 12 years, mostly because they kept trying to hunt mammoths with pointy sticks.

Then there’s the Keto Diet, where you eat so much fat that your body gives up and starts burning itself for fuel, like a car running on its own upholstery. There’s also the Intermittent Fasting Diet, where you don’t eat for 16 hours a day, which is easy if you’re unconscious for most of it. And let’s not forget the Juice Cleanse, where you drink nothing but liquefied vegetables for three days, after which you feel so spiritual you could levitate, or possibly you’re just hallucinating from lack of nutrients.

I tried this diet once. It was called the Mediterranean Diet, which sounded appealing because I pictured myself lounging on a yacht off the coast of Greece, eating olives and sipping wine. Instead, I was in my kitchen, trying to figure out how to make quinoa taste like pizza. Spoiler: It doesn’t. Quinoa tastes like sadness with a side of gravel. The diet lasted four days, until I found myself at a family barbecue, staring at a plate of ribs so tender they were practically begging to be eaten. I told myself, “Mike, you’re on a diet,” but my stomach replied, “Mike, we both know you’re going to eat those ribs, so let’s skip the moral dilemma and get to the napkins.”

The problem with diets is that they’re based on the assumption that you can outsmart your body, which has been fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution to crave things like donuts. Your body is not stupid. If you try to trick it with a “low-calorie snack” like celery, your body will say, “Nice try, pal, but I’m holding out for something with frosting.” This is why diet food is so depressing. Have you ever tried “cauliflower rice”? It’s not rice. It’s cauliflower pretending to be rice, like a vegetable version of a bad undercover cop. You take one bite, and your taste buds file a formal complaint with the United Nations.

Then there are the diet gurus. These are people who write books with titles like Lose 30 Pounds in 30 Seconds Using This One Weird Trick! The trick is always something like “eat nothing but grapefruit and positive vibes.” These gurus are always in amazing shape, with abs that look like they were carved by Michelangelo, and they’re constantly posting Instagram photos of themselves holding a smoothie that costs more than my car. I don’t trust them. Anyone who smiles that much while eating kale is either lying or has no soul.

The worst part of dieting is the guilt. Every time you “cheat” on your diet—say, by eating a single Oreo—your brain acts like you’ve committed a federal crime. You start calculating how many hours of treadmill time it’ll take to burn off that Oreo, and before you know it, you’re Googling “how to move to a country where calories don’t exist.” Meanwhile, your friends are no help. They’re either on their own diets, giving you unsolicited advice like “Have you tried chia seeds?” or they’re eating a cheeseburger in front of you, saying, “Oh, you’re still doing that diet thing? Good for you!” while ketchup drips onto their shirt.

Here’s my advice: If you want to diet, go for it, but don’t expect miracles. Your body is not a math equation; it’s a grumpy toddler who wants what it wants. Eat some vegetables, sure, but don’t be afraid to live a little. Life is short, and nobody on their deathbed ever said, “I wish I’d eaten more cauliflower rice.” If you really want to lose weight, try the Mike Walk Diet: Eat whatever you want, but only while running from a saber-toothed tiger. It worked for the cavemen.