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Dear Holiday Dieting,
Let’s get this straight. For most of the year, you lie dormant, a silent harbinger of the yuletide season. But once the peppermint bark has peeled and the hot cocoa’s been poured, BOOM! You’ve crawled out from your dusty corner and into every magazine, online forum, and friendly conversation with the lady who bags my groceries. I have just two questions for you: 1) Are you kidding me? and 2) You’re kidding me, right?
For the last thirty days, I’ve watched you wave your “just say no” banner, planting mind games (Keep one hand on your drink at all times! Wear tight clothes!), as though we’re some species of seasonal pests in need of a controlling agent. Well, I’ve had enough of your crazy antics, holiday diets. Even your name is a joke! Can you spell o-x-y-m-o-r-o-n?
Look, I know you think you’re just doing your job. But maybe you should get an external audit, because the services you’re providing aren’t worth anything. By the time the holidays are here, we’ve already been fed enough advice from your sunnier cousins: Beach, Bikini, and Summer Diets. Is it too much to ask that we be spared your family’s guilt trip for a few weeks, as we deal with our own families, attend parties, navigate shopping lines, and otherwise wear ourselves to the bone? It’s not like we couldn’t use a little extra meat around this time*, if not to get through the holidays, then to last us through the ropes course in your pal’s famous boot camp come spring.
HD (Can I call you HD?), this is the one time of year that brings together semi-forgiving clothing and culinary temptations as rampant as the lines at Black Friday. Is this really want you want to do – drop in with your ragtag gang of experts and pseudo-doctors, telling us to just “chew gum and drink lots of water”? Or do I have to start calling you the Grinch instead – because your tips have stolen whatever pleasure could be derived from the decadence of bacon-wrapped scallops, as they parade by on some of the fanciest platters I’ll ever see. Well this is one parade you won’t be raining on anymore.
We are done, holiday diets. And it definitely wasn’t me. It was all you.
Best,
Karina
*The average amount of holiday weight gain for Americans is ONE POUND.
