The JP Diet

There are so many diets. And so many people writing books about them. A quick Amazon search for “diet books” turned up over 70,000 results. I don’t see why I should be excluded from this delicious trend. But I have decided that you, my dedicated readers, should be rewarded with a free introduction to something for which a lot of others will surely fork over. I think I will call it the JP Diet.

There are so many different kinds of diets out there.

But there is one great big problem with all of them – each features some things I love but excommunicates other foods I love just as much and cannot see doing without. So why not a diet plan that assembles the very best from the most successful diets while eliminating their weaknesses? That delicious thing you smell is the tantalizing blend of good health and money.

Let’s take, for example, the classic “Heart-Healthy” diet. This was hugely popular back in the early 1980’s, and we need something for retro appeal. It is a bonanza of fresh fruit, fresh vegetables and whole grains. It even embraces as “better foods” things like white sugar, white bread, pasta and alcoholic beverages. It’s problem, however, is that fat is verboten, and we have learned that dietary fats are actually good for you.

So we can fix its deficiencies with one of the high protein/low carb diets, like the well known Adkins version. These diets prioritize delightful things like red meat, cheese/dairy and eggs. So, already you can see the benefits – where either of the diets mentioned above will deprive you of that glistening cheeseburger that you crave so much, the JP diet says “Go ahead! Enjoy”. These diets also combine to permit life-giving things like ice cream (all the fat, all the carbs) and blueberry pie.

But wait, you may say – why can’t I have french fries with my cheeseburger and milkshake? Oh, but you can! This is where the Starch Diet comes in – while it nixes many of the things that the low carb and low fat diets promote, the starch diet removes the guilt from the humble potato. And how can any well-rounded person be expected to live without the potato? (Or, if you prefer, how can any lover of the potato fail to be well-rounded?) If we combine the starchy goodness of the basic spud with the carb-free fats from the fryer, voila!

The well-known Paleo diet gives us another source to justify promotion of potatoes as part of our well-balanced diet. It’s not Tubby the Tuber any more!

We must adopt a few features from the popular Mediterranean diet as well. Olive oil, tomatoes and red wine are a must for any big night out at the Olive Garden, and are therefore a must-have for the JP Diet. Another big plus is the way herbs and spices are promoted, which will take the guilt out of an evening spent at KFC. The Colonel clearly knew what he was doing with his “Special blend of eleven herbs and spices” because Mediterranean tells us that those herbs and spices are A-OK.

The South Beach diet is another that has a large following. In addition to some of the things already mentioned, it gives us a big one – all the coffee you can drink! But the benefit here is that the JP Diet brings in the Heart-Healthy Diet’s imprimatur on sugar and the low carb’s blessing on cream, so go ahead – the JP Diet allows you to doctor your coffee any way you want, right down to those eight-word orders at your favorite StarHucks. And go ahead, get the big one with no guilt!

You can surely see by now that the JP Diet is sure to be a resounding success, and just look – you are getting an advance taste for free. Once I write my book I will be on the A-List talk shows to promote its health benefits and on the best cooking shows to demonstrate my fabulous recipes like Beef Stroganoff, Four Meat Lasagna and my grandma’s Brown Sugar Pie.

Some of you may be raising an eyebrow about my claims for health benefits from the JP Diet, but hear me out. How healthy is it, really, to live in a state of stress and anxiety over every meal? Sure, you may live to 99 on some of those others, but you will be a neurotic, emotional wreck by the time you get there – and then die from cancer anyway. You will probably have been on the exercise bandwagon too, so your joints will all be shot as well. And how healthy is that?

My diet thinks of health on a per-year basis. The JP Diet may make it hard to get above your sixties, but each one of those years will be jammed full of the stress-free, low-impact lifestyle that makes for a well-formed person. Not to mention the tonic effect you will have on those around you. Really, would you actually like to spend an evening listening to someone droning on about living on 1.5 ounces of poached fish and some nuts before going out to run a marathon? “Me, me, me, me” and all that. My favorite people to meet at parties are the ones with great stories of life lived, meals enjoyed with wine or cocktails, and the interesting variety of folks they have met in their lifestyle. Trust me, there’s a lot more variety there than the ones who talk about little else than their own bodies.

So there you have it – the JP Diet is just the thing you have been looking for, even though you did not know it. This is the diet that you can custom-tailor to your needs and body type, and that will encourage you to get out there, enjoy life, and spread that enjoyment to those around you. Nobody is going to live forever. The JP Diet is the only one that will not make it seem that way. Now pardon me while I find a publisher who will make me unimaginably rich.

24 thoughts on “The JP Diet”

  2. I’m In! I’m also amazed when I crossed about 64, how much diet affects you daily. I just went through a bout with my doctor over heart palpitations, something I’ve never had, which ended up being caused by lack of potassium (ditto for leg cramps). This is where I learned that it’s almost impossible to get enough potassium from microwave meals, without getting way to much salt! Old age is a bitch…

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    • I once worked with a guy who was very large. His motto was if you eat enough, you get enough of everything your body needs. He is still alive and well (and large) in his early 80s. Maybe there is something to that – at least with the right set of genes.

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  3. This sounds like a most excellent and comprehensive diet.

    Might I suggest select elements of two other diets? The more famous is the Julia Child diet where you keep adding more butter. The other was my grandfather’s, introduced to me when he was in his mid-90s. In his vernacular, “roughage” meant biscuits and sausage gravy because it’s rough to not eat all of it.

    Your diet certainly beats the Jason Ad Hoc diet of earlier this year due to my pants having shrank in the waist. I quit drinking sweet tea and soda and dropped seven pounds in five days. But unsweet tea is little more than dirty water, which simply takes the joy out of life.

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    • I have had soda (pop in the part of the world where I come from) very infrequently for quite awhile. And I am right there with you on the unsweet tea – might just as well drink the water, which is free.

      And I can get on board with that kind of roughage. These are excellent suggestions for inclusion in a diet book.

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  5. That was hilarious JP – I’m sitting here with tears of laughter streaming down by face. It’s truly the funniest thing I’ve read in ages. I shall eagerly await your book publishing deal….and tv show….and you could take over for Anthony Bourdain traveling the world looking for the best diet aspects in every country.

    Seriously, I’ve been struggling with my diet ever since I had my cholesterol tested last year – in some ways I think it would have been preferable not to know – ignorance is bliss, as now I worry about what I eat whereas I never did before. Are eggs okay, are they not? The whole diet thing has gotten way too complicated – yes we should strive to eat healthy but not to the point where all the enjoyment is gone from eating.

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    • I don’t think people agree on even something as simple as eggs. For years it has been gospel that egg yolks are bad and egg whites are good. But I have read recently that new research has cast doubt on that formerly iron-clad truth. I think the only answer is . . .pie. 🙂

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  6. Sounds great, in fact I think I’m already there. Another application for Mom’s old saying of “Just be normal, that’s crazy enough”. We had a physician in our church who lived to a ripe old age and his advice was “just don’t eat a lot of french fries” so I can manage that.

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    • “Just be normal, that’s crazy enough” is some of the best advice I have ever heard. Although normal can be hard for some of us. 🙂

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  7. That was funny JP and I’d say the closest to a diet I follow is the Mediterranean Diet with a little wiggle room. I have not had red meat in forever, so that’s good and the “have a handful of nuts here and there” resonates with me, even though it’s hard to stop at a handful and besides … define handful. I like eggs and eat them hardboiled – eggs are bad for cholesterol but good for your eyes. If I don’t eat red meat and I eat plaque-busting hot oatmeal 365 days a year , does that cancel out the “bad” part of eggs, but wait I want to see clearly. Your book will be a hit. 🙂

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    • I don’t get enough hard boiled eggs. Marianne is highly averse to very few things, but hard boiled eggs is one of them. Go figure. I can actually remember my mother serving boiled eggs for dinner. Marianne would not have liked that at all. 🙂

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      • I have to admit that when I make hard-boiled eggs, I always over-boil them and the yolks are not a lemon-yellow color, but a mottled yellowish-gray color. Since it is just me eating them, I buy the Eggland’s Best Hard-boiled eggs. I don’t treat myself to much, but these are delicious – already peeled and look appetizing inside. My mom used to make deviled eggs all the time, especially when we had salads and cold dishes in the Summer.

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  8. You’re on to something, JP. You could bring down the entire diet-book empire with your Diet, which effectively trumpets the merits of “whatever you fancy”. Seriously, how many times have you heard of a person in dire straits (or dying) because of their eating habits alone? Even the Med Diet suggests an active lifestyle on top of the foods. Seems to be a crapshoot whether any of the big-name diets improve a given life. Too many other variables at work. As my late father-in-law used to say, “There’s nothing better than a good meal”, and believe you me he wasn’t talking about a healthy one. I always think of his words when the table is full, not only of food but of good people.

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