Anyone who has ever (or always) fought the weight battle to suffer on its losing side will tell you this: ‘It’s an uphill task and climbing with all that weight is neither easy nor witty.’ Smoothie diets, low-carb meals, soup fasts, they all work – until one fine day (read six days later) they stop working without notice. So before you go on your next drastic yet temporary life-altering change with much fanfare, excuse yourself from idioms of assurance and you may just drop a pant size or two.

Of course, I fell for them…how else would I know?

Triggering metabolism
The body changes over time; so don’t expect the four cups of green tea you had this afternoon to start an overnight furnace in your stomach that will magically melt all your fat. It doesn’t happen. Not even in the movies. Rest assured, you’ll be closer to the washroom.

Diet partners
When they lose more than you, either you get too charged up or feel useless in comparison and go off the rails. Okay, okay, you know it…only the latter happens.

Success stories and before/after pictures
One size never fits all, literally and figuratively. That woman you saw in the print advertisement who wears jeans three times her size, showing off her tucked tummy claiming she lost 20 kilograms in three months by following some diet, is either paid a huge sum to do so or is just wearing jeans three times her size. Get the hint?

The 10/20/50 new/best ways to lose weight
Everything you ever needed to know about weight loss, you already do or it exists on the internet, so the good news is, they are fun to read, the bad news is…new ways, hmm, let’s see...there are none.

Calorie check
If happiness could be measured in calories, then you’d forever be doing the math and would never still get the equation right.

Quick fix
There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch…and quick fix. You’d rather throw your money in the sea than spend on a hasty remedy that will come back in three days to haunt you.

Magic pills
Seriously? What do they do? Cast a spell on your body’s fat so that it melts in your sleep and you turn into a svelte Disney princess? Err, let’s not even get there. Weight loss is rocket science really. It’s a slow, less glamorous and more taxing process that never ends, so you rather make it fun and exciting in your own way. And when you do lose some weight - without starving to death and stretching a ligament or two on the treadmill (drum rolls please) - let us know how you did it.

THE DIETER VARIETY
Pursuing the global dream of achieving wafer-thin supermodel like figures, most Indians are obsessed with their weight and still manage to get fatter as we speak. On any given day, one finds neighbours, friends, co-workers and relatives on either some kind of diet or on a guilt trip for not being on one.

THE ‘I’LL START FROM JAN 1ST’ DIETER
Holiday weight leads to promises of a new start in the New Year and ends right with the heavy breakfast consumed to kill the New Year Eve’s hangover.

THE ‘I’LL START FROM MONDAY’ DIETER
The resolution is made on a Tuesday and extra calories and scrumptious dinners are devoured for the ‘big’ sacrifice starting next week. The diet begins with full gravity on Monday and falls flat on Tuesday.

THE ‘I HAVE A WEDDING IN THE FAMILY’ DIETER
Of course you want to look beautiful in those wedding albums and so begin the promise that’s most difficult to keep. Even worse, it’s kept till 15 days before the wedding and then the Indian sweets (not you) ruin the whole plan. After all, it’s a wedding in the family!

THE ‘I HAVE ONLY FIVE KILOS TO LOSE’ DIETER
Crash diets like GM and Scarsdale seem perfect but Day 1s get acidic with all the fruit, Day 2s bring migraines and Day 3s are ‘Who cares, I only have five kilos to lose... I’d rather take the steps then the elevator’. Metaphor?

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