The Ecphorizer

Yet Another Diet Plan
George Towner

Issue #43 (March 1985)

A little bonus you might not have expected from an Ecphorizer subscription


Large bookstores nowadays have entire sections devoted to diet books. Doctor Hackflesh's Secret Regime. The Miracle Seven-Day Diet. Jane Fundament's Exercise and Diet Book. The Pickles-and-Yeast Diet. Eat Cream Pies and Stay Slim. [quoteright]Besides being the world's best fed society,

My Magic Diet can be expressed is three short words

it seems we are also the most interested in avoiding the consequences of being well fed.

In leafing through these books, I have been struck by the fact that their messages are usually expressible in a single sentence, or at least a short list of "Eat" and "Don't Eat" foods. I mean, what can you say about a diet? But no one gets rich selling a single sheet of paper. So the authors and publishers of such books have (pardon the metaphor) fattened their ideas into a form they are not ashamed to peddle for $12.95. The business cries for someone to put an end to all this puffery by putting out, in a single volume, an Anthology of American Diets.

Meanwhile, however, I am coming to the rescue. Your Ecphorizer subscription has just been enhanced, at no additional cost, by the addition of Towner's Magic Diet. I will reveal it to you now. While other diet plans may require several lines for their explication, the Magic Diet can be expressed is three short words:

Don't eat lunch.


Come now, you will exclaim, such a regime surely can't work. And if it did, it would be unbearable. Not so, at least for me. It transported me from 180 to 160 pounds, a critical difference for a six-foot male. I am still losing about two pounds a month, and expect to taper off soon by noontime snacking on fruit or veggies. As for its being unbearable, I find it a great convenience. No more hassling food in the middle of the day. No more breaking off work or recreation to answer hunger pangs. After the first couple of weeks of the Magic Diet my daytime hunger pangs disappeared.

Of course there is more to it than just forgetting about lunch. I pig out at breakfast and I pig out at dinner. I naturally eat a fairly balanced selection of foods and get a healthy amount of exercise. But it seems to me that two good meals, 12 hours apart, suit my body's needs perfectly. Lunch is just a fat-maker.

The Magic Diet is marvelous when you're traveling. As a matter of fact, I learned it from Christine Palmer-Persen when we were bumming through Central Africa. At first it was merely a convenience; it meant we weren't condemned to a bowl of greasy goat meat and pounded yams in whatever village the bus stopped at between cities. But soon I noticed that I no longer missed midday food. Moreover I was more alert during the afternoons. Dinner became more of an occasion. Christine has been following the Magic Diet for years and has a very trim figure to show for it.

So there you are: yet another diet plan. The main difference between it and all the rest that crowd the bookstore shelves is that this one didn't cost you $12.95. 

George is one of those lucky ones who never gets fat.  I mean really truly and obviously overweight.  That's not to say that the pounds haven't come and gone over the years, and why wouldn't they when you're married to the finest unknown French chef this side of the English Channel.  George also wrote "Carbohydrates and Summer," another essay on dieting featured elsewhere in these pages. You can read about George's latest book here!

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