I am collecting all of your questions, but things have been crazy between NaNoWriMo, school, and work. I also would like you all to know that I am currently in the same boat as many of my readers - I am awaiting a response from a publishing company about the three chapters I sent in. Contacts within the industry only get you so far. Now my writing has to stand on its own like everyone else's. I feel your pain.
Today a query came in for a diet book. This would hardly be exceptional if not for the total idiocy of the writers. After jabbering on for three paragraphs about how much weight this husband and wife had lost (not mentioning how long it took them to lose it - it could be years for all I know), they finally got down to the actual amazing plan: "DECREASE YOUR CALORIE INTAKE AND YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT."
...Wow. What a revelation.
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But Rejecter, hope springs eternal! Package it nice and pretty and tangle up the language so it looks like it's saying something, and you've got the next South Beach Diet! (See www.dubyaspeak.com and read George Bush's tangled language for examples!)
Hey!
I had no idea that all I had to do was cut the calories to lose the pounds!
Huh. Learn something new every day, I guess. ;0)
Hee hee... I've been saying that for years.
Here's the diet secret...
burn more calories than you take in!
Now, where do I sign on my publishing contract??? And when should I expect to become rich, rich, RICH???? :>
It works if you cut off a limb too...
Let's see. There's the "Basic Training" diet. Signing up for the army and doing basic training is a great way to lose weight. I'm surprised no one has written about that yet. There's also the tried but true 'Hermit Diet' which consists of sitting cross-legged and naked on a stone, and eating only what the pilgrims bring.
Personally, I like the "Shipwrecked" diet: only eat what you can find on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere.
You know, there's another TOP SEKRET DIET which I'm about to reveal exclusively right here: Exercise more! Yes, if you burn more calories than you eat, you'll lose weight. Wow!
If you don't want to exercise a whole lot, cut the calories instead. Woot!
I'd publish a book on my findings but the covers would be thicker than the contents. (Hey, Kim, you nicked my SEKRET PLAN. That's no fair.)
(And on a related topic I'll always remember a fantastic eating plan called the F-all diet, as presented by Not the Nine O'Clock News:
Breakfast: F-all
Lunch: F-all
Dinner: F-all)
F-all Diet! Lol!
Good luck with your three chapters Rejecter. I hope they don't keep you waiting for their reply.
Simon, I tell you what - why don't we split the royalties?
And I'm still waitin' for that contract, so your share might take a while =)
We are forgetting the menopausal crowd, like me. I don't care so much about losing weight, because one of the benefits is it is really difficult for menopausal women. No, I want a diet that maximizes the potential for chocolate, caffeine, pasta and bleu cheese dressing and allows me to maintain my comfortable overweight withtout launching into diabetes, lol.
Sam is right! I lost 20 pounds in basic training -of course- that was in 1972...
Now I agree with writtenwyrdd...
menopause is a bitch...
Hmmmm. Sam's 'Hermit Diet' sounds promising, provided you don't get dragged off for indecent exposure or anything--or, wait! No, the hermit diet won't work at all, becuase you would get dragged off, and then the jail would feed you! And if you only eat what they bring you . . . nope, I don't think that diet would work at all. Unless it's really bad food. :o)
I gained a pound in basic training, but I went from a 12 to a 6/8 and less than 10% body fat. I could also bench press 220. Too bad our youth doesn't last!
Is this book titled "State the Obvious"?
I'd rather buy a diet book that stated the obvious than half the crap out there.
It's a strange market isn't it... either come up with some weird gimmick and sell books or tell the truth.
Cutting calories might seem like nothing new yet we still have an obesity epidemic.
Can I query you? I have a book idea on how to be a success:
Go to college.
More success? Get a MBA
A second book: How to become a major league baseball player:
Practice.
I have lots more ideas...can I query? please?????
It's a pass, I agree.
Actually, Simon, it's hard to lose weight exercising. Just sleeping burns at least 2/3 as many calories as running. You really do have to cut calories.
Now if the book just said that up front, and then showed you clever ways to cut calories, that would be something...
Anyway, look for my new book: "How to make money on the Stock Market." Chapter one is: "Sell stuff for more than you paid for it."
:D
My doctor told me once that "if it is something you could make yourself but it tastes better, they've added sugar, salt or fat. Don't eat it."
Alas! Since the 70s we have been eating Tuna and Hamburger helper, Kraft mac&cheese and other unhealthy but tasty fake foods. Then there's the modern conveniences which cause us to burn fewer calories, and the boob tube and video games...
It's mass balance -- eat less. Doesn't matter what, just eat less.
Three fists a day = about 1,500 calories and that's about all most of us need. That's three portions about the size of your fist.
Try it. It works.
And for heaven's sake STOP GRAZING! Our bodies evolved in circumstances where it was feast or famine. We didn't evolve as grazers. We evolved to store efficiently that which we ate during feast so that we didn't die during the eventual famine.
Grazing only produces a Pavlovian response -- we feel like we need food. It also makes it more difficult for you to know when you are truly hungry. So, if you're having weight problems stop grazing.
Clever.
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