The Paper Diet

Image via Wikipedia

One of the most annoying radio ads currently is the awful Pull! Pull! Ad. You know the one:

Pull! Pull!
Arrrghhh!
Come on, pull! You can do it! Pull!
Arghhhhhaaauuuuuugghh!
Zzzp
Ever felt like getting into your dress is getting into labour?

Gratingly idiotic, annoyingly voiced, unpleasantly connoted and insultingly mindless, it's not just an awful piece of advertising (and let's face it, it's gotta be pretty awful to stand out in the circus of misbegotten creative maladroitness that is Dubai radio advertising), but it's promoting an awful little scheme, too.

The breakfast cereal people have come up with a great idea: diets that are based around eating their virtually content-free product twice, instead of once, a day as part of your weight control/loss regimen. It’s brilliant – how to double sales by preying on people’s desire to lose weight.

This stuff is worthy of Edward Bernays, the 'father of modern PR' who hooked America's women on smoking by having them light their 'torches of freedom'.

The idea's nice and simply. All you have to do is eat a bowl of puffed rice and/or wheat crackers with low fat milk for your morning and lunchtime (maybe with a little naughty fruit!) and then have a meal at night. Together with increased exercise the result is, hey presto!, weight loss in just two weeks!

Two weeks?

Yes, two weeks! That's all it takes!

Let me save you some money as well as having to ingest GM ingredients processed with high fructose corn syrup, artificial ingredients, palm oil extracts and flavourings. Eat a sheet of paper with a cup of black tea in the morning and one more at lunchtime. You can put some milk in the tea. Have a normal meal at night, but walk briskly for at least an hour. You can use cardboard boxes if you like, but try and cut down on the total surface area, perhaps A5 size.

You'll lose weight in no time!