“The average American may consume more than 4,500 calories and a whopping 229 grams of fat during Thanksgiving.”
— The Calorie Control Council
“Adult women should eat between 1,600 and 2,400 calories daily, and men should consume between 2,000 and 3,000.”
— U.S. Department of Agriculture “Dietary Guidelines for Americans”
This Thanksgiving is going to be different. No, really. I’ve promised myself to start a new tradition. I’m going to eat super-duper healthy.
True, I pledged to eat smarter last Thanksgiving, only to scarf my food so rapidfire that I finished before anyone else had even sat down. I actually stuffed myself with so much turkey I wound up in intensive care with an acute case of irreversible spontaneous combustion.
The year before, I stopped ladling all the available gravy down my gullet only after my mother-in-law informed me that my face had turned blue.
All this was par for the course for me.
And granted, I first vowed to curb my consumption during the first Reagan administration. One year, at our apartment in Forest Hills, I performed jumping jacks between courses to slow my gluttony and finished my meal in mid-January. Another year I skipped seconds of pumpkin pie just so I could go straight to thirds, and the minute I stood up from the table, my pants split open at the seams, and then my shirt and socks, too.
But a few weeks ago I saw my doctor for my annual physical. He read me the riot act, verbatim. He pointed out that nature never intended for my stomach to reach my toes, and explained that at my current rate of expansion, I would soon surpass the blue whale in body-fat percentage.
And just moments before my blood pressure spiked so high it shattered his sphygmomanometer, he warned me that if I gained any more weight, I would have to apply to the U.S. Department of Transportation for my own time zone. I got argumentative, insisting that rather than overweight, perhaps I was simply underthin.
So yes, I’m overdue to demonstrate some semblance of nutritional responsibility. I’ve studied all the latest research on dietary practices available through the most reliable source of information ever invented, namely the internet. And, no kidding, several studies reinforce the suspicion that food itself, no matter how fresh and natural, is actually hazardous to your health.
One researcher found that the less you eat the longer you live — I saw the news either in The New England Journal of Medicine or The National Enquirer, I forget which — but then himself died of malnutrition at age 39.
This year I’ll be rigorously training my digestive system to behave itself. I’m going to cut out even trace amounts of salt, sugar and, above all, flavor. Ditto anything remotely crunchy, crispy or flaky. I’ll forgo all fats, including monosaturated fats, trans-fats, Fats Domino, Fats Waller and Minnesota Fats.
Everything set in front of me at the table will be steamed or boiled, even the knives and forks. I’ll pop capsules of beta-carotene and anti-oxidants, with a side order of Omega-3s. I’ll even hook myself up to an IV drip to control my caloric intake rather than leave my appetite to chance, even if my son-in-law complains that I’m killing the festive holiday vibe.
And no more stealing chicken wings that my second cousin is still chewing, nor any more nightmares on Thanksgiving eve about requiring a crane to lift me from my chair.
Yeah, I’ll be cracking down big-time. If anything tastes too good, I’ll just spit it out. I’ll also talk a lot more than usual during mealtime because it’s supposedly much harder to swallow if you’re yapping a blue streak.
But why stop there? If I’m ever to do better and keep my arteries operating-room clean, I’ll have to get creative. I’ll eat with a tiny fork — as opposed to a shovel — to limit my intake to microscopic morsels. I’ll put a scale under my plate to weigh all my portions.
And just for good measure, I’ll attach electrodes to my skull to monitor my brain wave patterns — because you never know — bring along my cardiologist in case I need an emergency consultation. At no point will I run the risk of experiencing even the least animal pleasure.
Mmmmmmm, yummers!
I definitely plan to take my holiday self-improvement program to extremes. Oh, this Thanksgiving is destined to be a classic. Go ahead, call it overkill if you like. I’m even seriously considering the most radical of tactics, namely moderation.
But probably only in moderation.
Brody, a former New Yorker now living in Italy, is a consultant, essayist and author of the memoir “Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age.”
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