Anorexic Annie
(June 26, 2007)

As with any weight loss story, it all began in the doctor’s office.

I was there for my yearly physical thus I had to stand on the scale to be weighed. My doctor moved one weight, then another, then a 3rd! He had never moved the third weight before.

“Suzy you weight XXX pounds.” (Editor's Note: Suzy did not include her weight in her report)
“This is horrible! I need a diet.”
“Suzy you are still within the average healthy weight for your age group.”
He tried to show me an egghead created chart of healthy weights but I would have none of it.

“I’ll have you know I’m not average at anything – I’m above average… umm… except for weight gain. For weight gain, I am below average. What was I saying? Oh right. In conclusion I need a diet!”

“Suzy all you need to do is a little exercise. A couple of times a week ought to do it.”
“A couple of times a week? Who do you think I am? Bo Johnson?”
“I think you mean Bo Jackson, the famous duo sport athlete. And no, you don’t have to play three different sports a week. Just pick one thing and stick to it.”
“I think I’ll stick to a diet.”

I am one of those people who demand the best so when I look for a diet, I go to the swami of dieters - my friend Anorexic Annie. Don’t worry, Anorexic Annie’s name is misleading - her real name is Annabelle.

I have known Annie since our days together in kindergarten when we were both caught dieting for our school photos. In Grade 5, Annie had shed enough pounds to fit into her sheep costume at the Christmas Pageant. Over the years I’ve been beside Annie during the legwarmers, the thigh masters, the pills, the spills and the weightlosing thrills.

Annie answered her door. I hardly recognised her. It wasn’t due to her outfit of a hideous looking matching sports bra and spandex shorts. My friend Annie had filled out. She no longer disappeared from sight when she turned sideways. Her skin was no longer hanging off her bones like baggy clothes. Her hair! Her hair was not only no longer stringy but it had completely grown back!

She looked so regular! What happened to my supermodel looking friend? Had she gone to the dark side and stopped dieting?

“Suzy TooToo, come on in. I’m just finishing up a yoga weight loss session. It is the new thing in the Himalayas. Give me three moments.”

Thank goodness she was still dieting. I thought we had lost one to the bad guys.

She returned to her yoga mat and followed the yoga master on TV.
“3 more Locust Poses.”
“2 more Locust Poses”
“1 more Locust Pose.”
“Good I’m done.”

She jumped off her mat and offered me a protein shake. I declined. As she made her protein shake, I explained my situation.
“So what do you think Annie?”
“You want to lose weight but don’t want to exercise?”
“And how!”

She thought for a moment as she chugged her protein shake.
“I was thinking you would have some cutting edge diet that would do the trick. Maybe that yoga thing you were doing.”
“No, the key for you will be the salad.”
“Salad? It’s that a code name for a drug?”
“No. Basically you eat salad for every meal and no snacks inbetween.”
“But I don’t like salad.”
“Exactly.”

I was not impressed. I could have thought of that myself. I wanted something exotic, something to match my celebrity standing in the community.

“Come on, can’t you give me a celebrity diet?”
“Like whose diet?”
“I just read that Jessica Simpson dropped 25 pounds off her body. How did she do it?”
“Actually she still wants to lose 8 pounds. She had planned to have a lobotomy to lose the final weight but surgeons quickly realised there was nothing there to take out.”

“I’m being serious. What about Christina? Britney? They are too rich to lose weight naturally. Isn’t there something else to make the process quicker?”
“Well yes, but they spent thousands of dollars in plastic surgery for their bilimic, pill popping bodies to appear normal. I learned a long time ago that the pills are not the best answer. Look at me, off the celebrity diets and feeling much better.”

“But salad? Really Annie, there has to be something else? Maybe a 10 items or less diets. Something that has coloured charts of food combinations? Maybe something that involves the words “calories”.

“Suzy, you respect my opinion right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Of all the diets and I know, and I know a lot, the salad diet is the best for you. Try it for a week and let me know. If you don’t see results after one week, come back and I’ll give you one of those Britney whacked out diets.”
“Agreed.”

I strolled (running would be exercise) to the nearest grocery store and bought bags of vegetables. The next day I had salad for breakfast, lunch and supper. As instructed, I repeated the following day. That night I weighed myself but there were no positive results. This continued until the fourth day.

By the fourth day, I was so sick of eating salad, that I only ate half meals. A bowl of salad (which lasted me one meal on the first day) now lasted all three meals. The pounds began a downward spiral like Jessica Simpson’s career.

Anorexic Annie was right. The best diet isn’t pills, exercising or lobotomies, no indeed. The best diet is eating vegetables. Their taste is so bad that you naturally eat less thus the weight loss.

Oh Annie you are such a genius! Now if I could only find a salad in raspberry muffin form – I’d be set.