I eat a good breakfast every morning. I always select multi-grain, whole wheat bread. You would think I was on a healthy diet, right? No, apparently not.
The New York Times tells me that I am doing it all wrong. A better strategy, it tells me, is to throw out my toaster. Not just my toaster, of course. I should also throw out anything I have duplicates of, anything broken or stained, or anything I haven’t used in some time. Apparently, this is the best strategy to lose weight.
When I read this, I was a little confused. How would I lose weight by emptying my kitchen, I wondered. Were they saying that all the extra exercise of cleaning up will help me slim down? But they don’t seem to be talking about exercise anywhere.
But I put my doubts aside. Clearly, the New York Times must know what they are talking about. What do I know anyway? So I decided to try their technique.
I looked around my kitchen, searching for anything I have duplicates of, was broken or stained.
First came the coffee mugs. Obviously, I have too many of them. So I threw away all of them except one. I also threw away all the spoons, ladles, forks, knives, cups…it’s amazing how many things I had in the kitchen which were duplicates.
I couldn’t find any thing that was actually broken, so I focused on looking for stains. I carefully examined all the appliances and utensils in the kitchen to look for stains. And then I found it.
The underside of my stainless steel pressure cooker had a black stain. I tried removing it with a tissue. It didn’t go away. I would normally have thought it was blackened metal and ignored it, but now I knew better. It was a Stain. And it was making me fat.
There was no other way. The pressure cooker had to go. I was determined to let nothing stop me from losing weight. So I gritted my teeth and added the cooker to the trash, along with all the utensils I had multiples of.
Finally, the kitchen was clean. It was amazing how neat and tidy it looked. I must admit I had a weak moment when I thought it looked rather empty. But the moment passed, and I felt proud of myself on having taken such an important step towards losing weight.
Next morning, my husband woke up and made some coffee.
“Where is your mug?” he asked me.
“I’ve thrown it away”, I replied.
“Why?’ he seemed puzzled. He would not understand, I told myself. Of course, he hadn’t read the New York Times.
But he continued, “Where is the toaster?” Then, looking around, “Hey, where is the pressure cooker?” For some reason, he seemed to be getting a little anxious now.
“I’ve thrown them all away”, I replied, beaming with pride. “Did you read the New York Times yesterday? They have this wonderful article on losing weight”.
But my husband had more pressing issues to think about. “How will we eat?” he asked in sudden panic. “We can’t cook, we will starve!”
Suddenly, I realized what the New York Times article had been all about. I knew how I was going to lose weight now.
Tonflourbroab
Savvy Aggarwal
Maria
Arindom Borah
erydaytrams
Perhaps throwing away your phone or computer so you can’t order pizza would help more.
Funny! There’s always someone or something else to blame, isn’t there?!
Kamini
Sounds like one of my attempts to quit smoking….throw away the ash-tray….i just ended up with a very messy house, with ciggy butts rolling everywhere…
Why not move into a house without a kitchen!
Re Neha’s comment, I think moving into a house without a bathroom might provide stronger motivation.
One characteristic of your blog is that in some entries you draw on your Indian identity and consciousness and in others you are not nationality-specific. It is a path I am comfortable with for myself.
Patrix: Great idea
Also my car, so I don’t go out to a restaurant (can’t possibly walk to one anyway).
Kamini: Yup! It’s not me, right? I’m doing all I can
Sandeep: That sounds typical
Instead of asking you to throw the cigarette pack! We even follow the same philosophy with medicine – target the symptoms, not the cause.
neha: I’m game, if I can find one!
Funnily enough, though a lot of people here hardly cook (the microwave is used more often than the stove), the kitchens have to have every type of appliance.
km: What, you have a plan to convert me into a yogi? Now I am not even allowed to drink water?
Candadai Tirumalai: That’s true, and I guess it is a sign of our hyphenated identities and experiences.
Tell me something. Have you seen any fat plants (cacti don’t count since they live in the desert and all things that live there are terrorists)? All of them are slim like those anorexic models on Parisian runways. And they don’t even diet and eat tissue for dinner. Their life is awesome. The NYT should urge its readers to try giving up exercise and kitchen cleaning and just ask them to sit under the sun to loose weight.
PS: ‘R’ turned into ‘my husband’? How come?
Ha!
Lekhni: I think there is a stage beyond hyphenated identity, which may be called seamless unity.
Good one.