PHAD DIET Four Week Update

                      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.