Thursday, March 6th, 2008

Fad diets - overbearing orangitude

When we first approached about doing fad diets, I was apprehensive about joining up; after all, I do enjoy eating food. But when the idea was floated to completely make up your own diet, I decided to put my health and other trivial concerns aside, for the sake of the lulz.

I was going on the orange diet.

The first order of business was to draw up a few completely arcane and unnecessary rules. Naturally, they needed to rhyme (meaning I unfortunately had to toss my “drown everything in orange food coloring and call it good” rule).

• If there’s orange in the name it’s fair game.

Basically, any food or drink item that had orange in its moniker was edible. I mostly did this so I could eat orange chicken.

• If it’s clear, drink without fear

In the interests of being able to drink water (and, as an unexpected bonus Diet Sprite), I made up the clear rule. Ah, the technicalities.

• If there are no tricks, eat the mix.

Obvious rhyming skillz aside, I made up this rule so I wouldn’t have to pick out the rice or vegetables when consuming my orange chicken.

I even made this neat little color guide governing what food I was actually allowed to eat. Orange is defined as the region of visible light between red and yellow, or light with a wavelength between 590 and 630 nanometers:

After purchasing copious quantities of Cheetohs, Goldfish and tomato soup, I was ready – or so I thought.

Far and away the worst part of any color diet is the distinct lack of choice and variety. Though Victor had some leeway with his red, green and white diet, seeing orange for an entire week kind of put me off on eating food of any kind.
The MiX Editor was kind enough to impart her wisdom (”you’re going to be pooping orange for a week!”) over and over, luckily her predictions never came to pass.

Originally, I had a diabolical scheme to reward myself with a delicious creamsicle for every day I managed to go without cheating. After purchasing 8 of them (for some reason Safeway only carries a box that has orange and strawberry creamsicles, a situation for which they will not go unpunished), I made it to day two before I realized how stupid it was to reward a diet by eating ice cream. Also, they were terrible.

Sometime around the middle of the week, Lisa (the muse of absurdity) realized that Victor and I could share Applejacks, seeing as they were orange and green.

The first picture is the bag directly after being removed from the box (why do they insist upon boxing a bag? That seems wasteful). When I bought it, I assumed there would be roughly a 1:1 orange to green ratio. Clearly, I was mistaken. I don’t know how many leprechauns one has to butcher for the die to make green Applejacks, but I honor their sacrifice.

Starting from Day 1, I battled with an extreme bout of insomnia (which still hasn’t gone away, leading me to think it may not be the orange diet at fault. Nevertheless, it did begin when I started the diet).

All orange and no sleep makes Dan a dull boy. Outrageous amounts of orange and no sleep makes Dan a dull boy. Too much orange and no sleep makes Dan something something. Go crazy? Don’t mind if I do!

Apparently I lost my mind sometime around Day 3, when I looked the definition of Applejack in old etymological books. Though I knew it was a popular alcoholic substance in America in its formative years, I was not aware “crab-lanthorn” was a synonym. Excellent. Regrettably, “applejack” does not have orange in the name, so I was unable to imbibe any crab-lanthorn.But I was not without liquor, no sir. I (wisely/unwisely) purchased some MD 20/20 and Boone’s Farm “Orange Hurricane,” making drinking the least of my worries. Wouldn’t advise either one. Luckily, straight vodka is clear.For reasons I’m still unclear of, Victor and I switched diets on Day 6 (Friday). I didn’t eat a damn thing all day.

Day 7 finally rolled around, the orange crush was over. The sun was shining brightly, the (delicious-looking) birds were chirping happily, and I was free to eat whatever I wanted.

And there on my Futon I sat, noisily crunching away on my Cheetohs.

The video blog I made is embedded below. It’s a touch long, but there’s a good bit with Sigfried and Roy in there somewhere. In my defense, I had insomnia. The full chronicle of my tale can be found here.

I never did get to have any orange chicken.