The Hop-to-It Diet

My ticket out of poverty has revealed itself.   I have discovered the secret to a perfect no-fail diet.

Unlike all the other weight-loss schemes, mine is a true solution that will show results in only 2 weeks.

This is all you need;

1. A walker/duct tape/and tote bag.

2. A pair of crutches-make sure they are the proper height or you’ll kill your shoulders and pits.

3. A really active imagination.

4. Your spouse, partner, or children must move out for a couple weeks so you don’t have any help.

5. Shower chair

Now, imagine that you’ve broken a leg or foot…any leg or foot, although the left may be the best choice because you’ll still be able to drive.    You won’t be able to use your extended medical leave to take off work, unless you can convince a physician to lie for you.  But I’m pretty sure “imaginary injury for the sake of weight loss” is not covered by most employers.

Move your TV to the furthest room from the kitchen. 

Keep your phones charged.  

Start on a weekend so you can get a good jump on it. No pun intended.  Since you don’t have an actual injury you must imagine the very worst consequences for putting weight on the “injured” leg.     Perhaps you can convince yourself that if you touch your foot to the floor you’ll be audited on your income tax.    If you touch the floor you’ll spend a lifetime in purgatory.  (Do they still have that?)   Maybe, like the sidewalk cracks of our youth, if you rest your “bad” foot on the floor someone will break their back.   Convince yourself that these consequences are real.

Try to anticipate the things you’ll need to put in the bag that you duct-tape to the walker. The bag will help you to transport things from room to room.  No matter how much you think it through, I assure you, you will forget something. But it’s FUN when you forget things. It keeps the diet fresh and challenging.

Any GOOD diet should be fun…right?   

Day One

Get out of bed…DON’T put that bad foot down!    Grasp the walker, hoist yourself up, and hop to the bathroom.  Depending on the size of the bathroom, you may have to sideways hop to get in.  That’s fine; you’re just using a different muscle group!    Lower yourself to the toilet on one leg while supporting yourself on the walker.  This is excellent for the deltoids and fore-arms.  You’ll work them when you rise UP from the toilet on one leg as well.   You’ll have to do this quickly because the phone is ringing in the bedroom.  You forgot to put it in your bag!   Hop quickly to the bedroom.  Now your heart rate is up!    Too bad you didn’t get to the phone on time.  The message indicates it was that cute guy/girl, from whom you’ve wanted to hear. Oh well. Sacrifice is good for the soul.

Now you need to hop back to the bathroom to wash your face and brush your teeth.   Are you still on one leg?  Goooood.    Now balance that way while you brush.  Now wash your face.  Still one leg!  Work up a good lather so your face is engulfed in soap. This is tricky because balance is a little harder when your eyes are shut…surprisingly.

Oh shoot!  The phone is ringing again and you still forgot to put it in the bag.  Hop quickly back to the bedroom now…worry about rinsing the soap off later.  You can’t open your eyes to screen the call because the soap is inching its way down your forehead. You answer quickly, (heart rate up!) only to have Sears tell you that the warranty on your dryer will be up any day now and it will cost a fortune to fix your machine should you allow it to expire.                                                                      

See?  Isn’t this fun?  You’ve already had a good work-out and it’s not even an hour into your first day!!!

Hopefully you have a cat or dog.  They’ve been underfoot all morning because they want food.   Hop to the kitchen.  Now reach way up or bend down low, on one leg, to get the can of food.    Hop to the pet dish.  Support yourself with one arm on the walker.  Still on one foot lower yourself, bending from the waist, to the food dish.  Whoops!  You’re holding the cat/dog food in the hand holding the walker (two fingers on the can, three grasping the walker.)   You must rise back up, transfer the can to the free hand, and lower yourself back down.  Don’t touch that “injured” foot to the floor!  No cheating!  This is GREAT for the abs as well.     It’s kind of tricky dumping the food into the dish with one hand while the pet is darting in and out, but after dumping the food on his head the first time, you’ll figure it out.  It only gets better!

Now hop to the bedroom to watch the news.  Whew!  You’ve made it to the bed and are already sweating.  Settle in, get comfy, and breathe.      What have you forgotten?   BREAKFAST AND COFFEE!    

OK.  Deep breath.  Rise up from the bed on one leg, grasp walker, and hop back to the kitchen.   You may have to zigzag hop across the kitchen to get the various items you need to make breakfast and coffee. If you’re lucky, your kitchen is only as big as a walk-in closet, like mine.  If you have a huge kitchen, bless your heart.

Stand on one leg while you wait for the coffee to brew.  I would suggest you use an insulated, covered coffee cup so that it doesn’t splash out when you hop back to the bedroom.  You can balance the eggs and toast on a plate in the bag.   Now you’re cookin!      Hop to the bedroom, lower yourself to the bed.  Set your coffee on the end table.  Ohhhh, some of your eggs slid off the plate into the bag.  No worries!  You’ll eat half as much!   You forgot the salt.  You hate eggs without salt.  But you sure as hell don’t want to hop back to the kitchen.  See?  You’ve also lowered your salt intake!!

You’ve earned a nice rest.  Just as you begin doze off, someone pounds on the door.    You wake from a stupor, grasp the handles of the walker firmly, make sure there are no exposed body parts, and hop furiously to the front of the house.      It’s the Jehovah Witness Ladies!!   You forgot they always come on Saturday.   They see you’re disabled and want to tell you that Jehovah loves you and will heal you.    You say terrible things to them because you’re cranky. You hop back towards the bedroom.  The dog has peed on the floor sending you shooting across the terrazzo.  Now you’ve worked your GROIN muscles! 

You lower yourself to the bed, once again, only to realize that you could have put the breakfast dish in the kitchen sink while you were there… You also could have cleaned the slimy eggs from the bottom of your bag.   You ponder whether to go back.  You decide to do it later.  You reach for your coffee.  It’s cold.       Shit.     You decide to hop back to the kitchen and wash the dish, the bag, and freshen your coffee.       You slip in the pee again because you forgot about it.  You make a mental note to grab some paper towels while you’re in the kitchen.  You feel clever because you remembered to put the cordless phone in your bag.  You propped the coffee cup against the dish.  When you get to the kitchen you discover that the coffee leaked into the cordless phone.   No worries!  You have a cell phone that you hear this very minute, ringing back in the bedroom.

You have officially burned 10,000 calories.

You may wish to utilize the crutches when venturing out.  No cheating!  Keep that foot UP.

If you go to the grocery store you’ll find that pushing a cart while using crutches is nearly impossible.  You’ll have to use a motorized cart.   This is a very humbling experience.   To learn humility is a good thing for the soul.  You see, this diet is good for body AND spirit!     Soon you’ll realize that you have to ask people to get things on the top shelf for you.   The cart has a basket half the size of a regular cart, so you won’t be able to get half the food you need.  You see how this works?  Half the food, half the calories! 

The nice, young man will get you back to your car and load your groceries into the back.  It’s been a busy day!     You get home, swing your legs out…don’t touch the “bad” foot to the floor!   You crutch around to the trunk, get it open, and realize that you’re not going to be able to carry the heavy bags with both hands on the crutches.  Plus, your pet will try to get out when you open the door.   It’s looking bad for the groceries.  The neighbors aren't home at the moment. You sure as hell don’t want to call someone on your cell phone to come schlep groceries into the house for you.   By the time a neighbor gets home, half of the food has been sitting in the trunk and its 80 degrees outside.    Again, you're cutting down on your food intake!    I’m really proud of you at this point for refusing to put that foot down. You left those bags in the trunk!  That takes real dedication.

You only have 13 more days of this!    Think how many calories you’ll burn AT WORK crutching from your desk to the printer 100 times a day!  And crutching to and from the cafeteria will burn those lunches like crazy!

By the time you make it through two weeks, you'll have mastered making your hopping trips more efficient.  You will anticipate what you need when you need it, cutting the trips almost in half.  You’ll still be burning calories, because you’ve decided, even with the limited hopping, that it’s just too much damned trouble to stand on one leg and cook or schlep food in your little bag.

Showers will never get easier, believe me.  Backing up to a shower chair and lowering your naked ass to it is always going to be a challenging experience.  You will forget to put the soap and towels where you can reach them, but standing up on one leg in a slippery tub is never worth the risk.  It’s really better for your hair if you skip washing it for several days, (all good hair stylists will tell you that), thus limiting your overall shower experiences.  The diet is good for your hair as well!

I’m sure I’m on to something here.   I urge you to buy stock in durable medical equipment, because once my diet takes off, walkers and crutches will be in high demand. 

 

I’m so sure I’ll make tons of money I’ve deemed this a MANY down comforters day.