The Italian Chandelier Diet

There's a joke e-mail going around that lists the number of calories burned by different types of -- let's call it adult activity (this is a family-friendly blog). I don't want to go into too much detail here, but apparently if you do the Italian chandelier at the age of sixty and find the G-spot, you can eat an entire cheesecake without gaining weight.

No wonder people sign up for those AARP cruises. Shuffleboard is just a cover story.

If you've ever tried to lose weight by exercising, you've probably already discovered that it's a big lie designed to sell workout machines and gym memberships. Fitness for health is a fine idea, but if you want to look good in a swimsuit it's not enough to get you there.

The most frustrating thing about exercising is that the same activity burns fewer and fewer calories as you lose weight. This helps explain the "plateau" phenomenon. You can go on a diet and start exercising and lose, let's say, five pounds in a week. Then, without changing anything, you'll lose three pounds in a week. Then one pound. Then, nothing.

The less you weigh, the fewer calories your body burns doing exactly the same thing.

The good news is that you can lose weight without exercising at all. Once you figure out how many calories your body burns just doing what you normally do, you can lose a pound every week by eating 500 calories a day less than that.

For the purposes of weight loss, it doesn't matter what you eat or when. As long as you eat 500 calories a day less than you burn, you can make it up as you go along and still lose a pound a week, every week.

Don't tell anybody that's what you're doing. Tell them it's some complicated diet that sounds like a biological weapons program in Iran. That's what they want to hear. Anyway, it's none of their business how you're losing weight.

Tell them you're doing the Italian chandelier.

Let them wonder how you lost twenty pounds changing light bulbs.

If you'd like more information on how to find out how many calories your body burns and how you can make calorie-counting less of a pain, pick up my book, "How to Make Money and Lose Weight." It's all in there.


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