The Ramen Noodle Diet

Have you seen these ridiculous "Angus Diet" advertisements that have been floating around the tube of late? You know the ones. Where the guy that reminds me of Al Franken back in the day (maybe its the hair) touts the wonderful benefits of eating Burger King's new Angus Steak Burger, performing an effective parody on the Atkins Diet. Anyway, for some reason these commercials made me think back to a diet of my own invention: The Ramen Noodle Diet.

First, I will lay out the details of the diet itself. Then I will detail my own results.

This is probably the simplest diet that you will ever come across. Exercise is kept to a minimum. There is no counting carbs, calories, fat, or anything else for that matter. The only counting you will be doing is counting the number of pounds that you've lost.

We will break this down into the three basic meals and the allowable snacks.

Breakfast

Breakfast consists of nothing. This may seem a bit drastic, but these are the sacrifices that must be made for physical appearances. Besides, the recommendation of the Ramen Diet is to wake up at around 11:00 a.m. With that in mind you can get yourself through the morning by thinking about how close to lunch you are. Small mid-morning (which I guess would be 11:30 a.m.) snacks are allowed.

Lunch

For lunch you will be dining on the food product at the core of this diet: Ramen Noodles. For the purpose of the Ramen Diet we recommend Nissin's Cup Noodle. While this is far (very far) from the top quality and taste of Ramen noodles available on the market, we choose this brand because it is tried and true. Its nutrition facts also come into play with this decision. Chicken is recommended and shrimp is to be avoided.

This brings us to another key feature of the Ramen diet: the price. While Atkins has you buying expensive meat and dairy products and avoiding the low cost items like bread, we encourage you to go for the cheapest consumable item. If you can find the case at BJ's or Sam's Club we highly recommend it. You will go through it in no time. But at about $.25 per meal this should not be a problem.

There is one beverage choice: A&W Root Beer in a 12 oz. can. Try not to drink too much water. If you drink too much you won't be thirsty for the root beer.

Dinner

Before attempting to consume dinner, first we recommend that you locate someone (a brother perhaps?) that will be paying for your meal. Whoever you find must be capable of laying on a heavy guilt trip on account of having to pay for you. To not disregard this; it is an important part of your dinner arrangement.

Because you feel so much guilt you will no doubt order less (or at least less expensive) food. We suggest some fine restaurants: Valle Luna, Denny's, Olive Garden, etc., etc., and so on. Wherever you go be sure to order the chicken caesar salad and a Diet Coke (if only to add legitimacy to your endeavor). Desert at the restaurant is a no-no, but don't worry, we haven't gotten to snacks yet.

Dinner at home should be avoided if at all possible. If you must, fix yourself some Velveeta Shells and Cheese (you have to visit this link). No substitutes. Have another 12 oz. root beer. Be careful when straining your pasta in the sink. Steam billows up quickly and hands should be removed from the strainer when this occurs.

Snacks

You have two main options for snacks: mini Kit Kats or mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Please purchase the 1 lb. bag and keep it in a cupboard that you have easy access to. You'll be raiding it often throughout the day.

If you need a more substantial snack then go for another Nissin Cup Noodle. That should satisfy you.

In Conclusion

Some may say that Nissin Cup Noodles are fattening. Some would say that they have an obscenely high content of sodium. All of those people are correct. But you can't argue with scientific results.

I left Massachusetts on June 3rd of 1998, headed for Arizona to live with Joshua for the summer. I had reached a then personal high weight of 167 pounds (yes, naked in the morning).

I left with about $300 in my pocket. As you can imagine, that money was gone within about 2 weeks. From then on out I was at the mercy of Joshua's wallet. If he said that he didn't want to buy me dinner then there was no dinner eaten. It was my own fault and he was actually more than generous considering the circumstances. Although I still have issues about the fact that he made me sleep on the floor for 3.5 months.

At the time I didn't even realize that what I was consuming would be considered a diet. But as the Angus Al tells us in his commercials, "What you eat is a diet." That's true.

Joshua did not have a scale at the time (does he have one now?), so there was no way for me to measure myself during the entire summer. It really didn't even occur to me to do so. I knew that I had lost some weight, but I didn't think it was that drastic. I never went hungry; I always felt full. Little did I know the shock that I was in for (not to mention everyone else).

When I finally returned home on September 14th of that year one of the first things that I did was hang out in the basement of John and Mary Beth's house. That's where we were living at the time as Gina was saving up for her house. John and MB were very hospitable and we thank them for the use of their home (and their scale).

Michael Wells and his brother Rob were down in the basement hanging out with Carl and I. That's where they could be found for most of that summer. They were all relating what a summer I had missed, how Michael had moved in (I'm not sure that John and Mary Beth even knew about this, never mind approved of it), all the crazy things that had transpired in that little dark dungeon.

Rob looked at me as we all laughed about the mayhem. For the first time in his life he had a serious look on his face. "You look like an AIDS patient," he said to me. And you know what, I kind of liked it.

Upstairs I raced to find a scale.

1. 4. 2.

That's right. In 3.5 months (= 104 days = 2496 hours) I had lost 25 pounds by eating Ramen Noodles, chicken caesar salad, and more mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups than a person should eat in a lifetime. And I felt great about it. No more paunch, paunchy!

You can argue with my methods, but you can't argue with my 25 pounds ... 'cause their gone.