The Delivery Vehicle Diet

I've lost a little weight over the last five months. Fifteen pounds to be exact, and I've actually managed to keep it off. It started some fateful day in February when I enjoyed lunch at a Minneapolis restaurant wonderfully named "Chicken 'n' Waffles," which serves greasy fried chicken and waffles the size of Alaskan feral cats. I walked from that lunch to the nearest Life Time Fitness, bought a membership, and voila.

Sure, the real key to this modest success has been exercise. It's the first domino to fall, and without even thinking about it, you start to eat better, crave less sugar and listen to less conservative talk radio. But I have another secret, and I'll share it with you now.

No, it's not having lots of sex. I put that on the truck to mislead and ridicule you. It's actually this: Once you start thinking clearly about food (because of that exercise thing I mentioned earlier), you start realizing that the true structure of food is one of "drug" and "delivery vehicle." The next time you see "chip and salsa," think "pot and bong," "cocaine and rolled up c-note," "heroin and syringe."

It varies with the splendor of our multi-cultural, multi-personality, multi-faceted melting pot of a society. But for me, chips are a salsa or hummus delivery vehicle. Or, if there is no dip, they are really a salt delivery vehicle. In fact, most things at their core are salt, sugar, alcohol or caffeine delivery vehicles. They're just masked as "pizza," "juice," "cosmo" and "iced quad espresso." Conversely, an egg is a protein delivery vehicle and broccoli is an anti-cancer delivery vehicle. But that isn't as much fun now, is it?

Last night as I spotted middle-aged men raising their hands and saying "hi ladies!" to a herd of college grad females, I realized that bars are so eternal because they are combination alcohol, salt (chips and 'spin dip) and sex delivery vehicles--in their dreams. Some might argue that marriage itself is a sex delivery vehicle. (Bill Maher would argue that it's actually a celibacy delivery vehicle.) Las Vegas is a permissible-sin delivery vehicle. Branson is a music delivery vehicle, sort of. Paris is a romance delivery vehicle. Work is a money delivery vehicle. And delivery vehicles themselves... are John Malkovich.