Village Idiot: Live and let diet
By Jim Mullen

I'm always trying to lose weight. Whenever I felt particularly heavy and out-of-shape I'd tell people it was an eating disorder. I'd tell them I was a bulimic amnesiac. I'd go on eating binges but forget to vomit.

Now I've been on the Atkins Diet for almost two years. It really worked for me. It's the only diet that has. I know, I know. I've heard it all. People like to corner me at parties and say, "You know, when you go off it, you're just going to gain all that weight back." Well, duh. If you go off any diet you'll gain the weight back.

They can't believe that I can eat hamburgers, steaks and cold cuts by the ton and lose weight. And maybe everybody can't. But it's working for me.

"Don't you miss dessert?" Well, help me here. Is there some other diet that let's you eat all the chocolate cake, cherry pie and Haagen-Dazs ice cream you want to? Of course not. Oh, I suppose if you went on one of those healthy, sensible, balanced meal plan regimes like Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig they will let you eat a few sweets now and then, but as rational as that may be, I could never stick with it. I didn't gain my extra pounds because I like to do all things in moderation. Exactly the opposite. I like to do things to excess. I like to eat too much. Atkins lets me do that.

So I've lost 25 pounds and my friends and family are deliriously happy for me, right? They all want my advice on how to lose weight. They're supportive, they're complimentary, they're there for me.

Sheesh. What planet are you on?

"You," Sue tells me every night, "are killing yourself."

"Thank you, dear. How was your day?"

"How can you live on ham and broccoli? It's just not natural. I heard from Louise that your body is simply eating itself. It's brain tissue you're losing."

"That would be the Ph.D. research nutritionist Louise or the Louise that cuts our hair?"

"She read it in a magazine, smarty-pants."

"I think I saw that. It was right after the story about the woman who got abducted by aliens and before the one about belly dancing your way to inner peace."

"Have you noticed nobody's inviting us to dinner anymore? Nobody can afford to feed you. You eat all the meat and leave all the vegetables. You put butter on top of your steak. You eat all the cheese but none of the crackers. You're not on a diet, you're a menace. You've got to be on all vegetarians 'Most Wanted' list. I don't want to be there when they find out where you live."

"Hating me gives them a reason to live."

My buddy Dave thinks there's something wrong with me because I won't drink beer anymore.

"I think it's a well-established fact that a few six packs of beer every day is good for you," he says.

"No, it's ONE glass of red wine a day that's supposed to be good for you."

"Same difference."

"No it's not. One glass of wine and 12 cans of beer are not equal. Where did you learn math? At Hooters?"

"You gonna eat that?" He is looking at my pizza crust. I've eaten all the stuff off the top and left the crust. I'm now digging into a guilt-free plate of wings.

"I don't know," Dave says chewing away on my uneaten pizza crust. "How you can eat all that funny stuff? It ain't right."

I just watched as he downed a plate of fried cheese sticks, nachos, jalepeno poppers, coconut popcorn shrimp and curly fries while waiting for his main course to appear — a Philly cheese steak with a side of onion rings.

Dave doesn't have an extra ounce of fat on him. He's as lean as mop handle.

"How do stay so skinny?" I asked him.

"It's easy," he said. "Some days I just eat whatever I feel like and then days like today, I watch what I eat."

Jim Mullen's latest book, "My First Wedding: A Primer for Modern Couples," was just published by Simon & Schuster. He also contributes regularly to Entertainment Weekly, where he can be contacted at jim_mullen~ew.com

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