Cork's
PHAD Diet Weight Loss Attempt
(May 15-July 26, 2017)
Diet Start Weight: 240 lbs.
Goal weight: 220
Week Three Weight : 227
Current Weight: 225.5
Week Four Loss/Gain: -1.5
Total loss to date: 14.5
To
go:
5.5
lbs
The Amphetamine and Golf Diet
(AKA The Greatest Diet Ever)
This revelation dates me well back into
the last Century, but I remember when "Speed" was legal. For one brief, delirious
summer, it was the heart and soul of the most successful diet I’ve ever tried.
My own Father hooked me up.
Handsome and slender in his younger days,
Dad fought in World War II. He
bombed Germany but did not fight The Battle of the Bulge until after the conflict
ended.
By
1963, Dad was losing that battle. Not for lack of trying. He tried every diet
in the books. My Mom and I hated when one began. He resembled a bear that’d
just lost a squabble with a porcupine. Actually, Ursus Hornbills
with a snout full of quills was better company.
Spring of ’63, an Air Force flight
surgeon put my father on a new diet. I was home from college and Mom
and I
prepared ourselves for the nightmare to come. But this time something was
definitely different. In one week, Dad lost about 15 pounds and changed
personalities—for the good. No grumping, no grouching, no snapping—he could not
have been more pleasant. One morning over his tiny breakfast he declared his
love for his new diet.
“This is the greatest diet ever. Not only am I losing weight,
not only am I not hungry ever, but
I’ve never been in a better mood in my life. I talk with anyone about anything
anytime. I never did that even when I wasn’t dieting.”
Mom and I waited for the punch line. But
Dad laughed and continued.
“Seriously, I walk up to complete strangers and start up
conversations with them about what a lovely a day it is, and how pretty the
sound of birds singing is to my ears. I get the strangest looks in return. But
I don’t care. No one can hurt my feelings. I’ve never been more positive about
life. I’ve said more words in the last few days than all of last year. I love
life and life loves me.”
To demonstrate his happiness, he swept
Mom into his arms and waltzed her around the kitchen. Mom didn’t even mind that
her Maypo got cold.
Okay, I made that last part up, but Mom
and I realized, this isn’t a diet—
it’s
a miracle.
I wanted in on the action. I was tickling
the Toledo’s at a good 225 myself those days, so I asked Dad if he could help
me. I was still a military dependent and I soon visited the same flight
surgeon.
“Take one pill each morning,” he said,
handing me a prescription to this new Diet Pill.
No job that summer, so I could play golf
every day. A typical morning would start with a small bowl of cereal and milk.
Then 18 holes—or more. Like Dad, I quickly found myself filled with energy and
cheerier than I’d ever been. I
walked the golf course, schlepping my own bag. My skill level assured there would
be much traipsing through the forest primeval, exploring hidden
moonscapes, sand traps, and Titleist-eating rodents of unusual size.
From WWII Warrior to Cheerful Bunny Rabbit
Still, I became as cheerful as a bunny
rabbit. Shots that once led me to erupt into fits of rage now caused me to
erupt into ironic asides.
“Oh my, that is deep into the pines,” I’d
say, admiring my banana slice like a cleanup hitter who’d jacked one into the
cheap seats. “Quell droll. I can’t
wait to tell Mater and Pater.”
Meanwhile, the shards of glass that usually inhabited my
stomach during diets were gone, replaced by a pleasant, slightly full feeling,
which gained momentum as the day went on. By evening, I felt stuffed. Dad got
home and we caught up on our respective days; each of us chattering like
Macaws, my svelte and usually verbose Mom all but hushed up for the evening.
Many nights she headed to bed early, exhausted from getingt a word
in edgewise.
Force Feeding the Dieters
Eating dinner was a chore for Dad and I.
I had to force myself to eat, lucky if I could get down a small portion of meat
and half a potato. Because we both took our pills in the morning they wore off shortly
after dinner, replaced not with hunger but fatigue. Neither of us had any
trouble getting to, or staying asleep.
As summer went by, Dad and I both noticed
chinks in the diet’s armor. It lacked staying power. After a while, the “Upper”
effect lowered, our appetites returned, we were less cheerful, and saw a
diminution of energy and lessening of the urge to babble. One night, after
carrying the dinner table conversation, my Mom urged us both to check back with
the doctor for advice.
He confirmed the side effect. There were
two ways to counter it—increase the dosage—too dangerous—or interrupt the diet
now and then, hoping to keep the lost weight off until the pills had a kick
again. I’d skip the pills on weekends—sometimes suffering minor diet setbacks,
then by Monday I was ready to go again. But overall, the results of the Flight
Surgeon’s Diet were inarguably positive.
Dad reached his goal and by the time I
returned to college, I had plummeted from 225 to 170. I had to buy all new
clothes and the greeting from college chums was a cheery, “Good to see you
John. Are you dying?”
The most amazing experience came at a cocktail
party shortly after returning to campus. I ordered a Manhattan, the first
alcohol I’d had since my diet began.
I had not eaten all day. I literally felt my first sip track down my esophagus
and pour into my stomach, where I could feel the liquor absorb through the
walls of my stomach and hit the blood stream. I was skunk-level drunk before I
had a chance for a second sip.
Ass Over Teakettle Centerfold
I played intramural flag football
again that year, with one not-too-minor difference. On the first play of the
first game, the opponent ran a sweep my way. I knew the drill. Stone the
pulling guard and turn the play inside.
I think the driver of the
first truck that hit me giggled as he flicked my scrawny frame high into the
clear blue sky. I don't want to say I traveled a great distance, but there was
time for two drinks and a bag of Beernuts before landing. (I was later chosen
October centerfold for Ass Over Teakettle
Magazine.)
A ref leaned over to ask me
what day it was. I said, “I’ll have the veal.” I was whisked to the Infirmary
where they needed a specimen of my blood, my urine and my stool. I said,
"Take my shorts." A drummer gave me a courtesy rim shot and Henny
Youngman came by to take a bow. I then donned a "vent in the ass"
hospital gown that wrapped around me twice, with enough material left over for
two quilts and a party banner. The
doc told me I'd had a concussion. I demanded a second opinion. He said (all together now…): "You're ugly,
too." The next morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas.
Unfortunately, it was too good a diet to last. Some
spoilsports started using amphetamines for cheap thrills and all-nighters. As
far as I know the Air Force only issues them now to aircrews in combat and/or long
missions.
My crutch
removed, and back in the grip of my college chef—a devout member of the Church
of the Wholly Cholesterol—I gained the weight back within the next year. Dad
took a little longer to regain the weight he lost.
The silver lining? I was starting again
for my fraternity football team and that year we won the university title.
Throughout a lifetime of dieting I can
say without doubt the Amphetamine Diet was by far the most enjoyable—while it
lasted.
