Twilight Zone Diet

Cue Rod Serling

Start music (do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do)

You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the Twilight Zone!"

11.24 We observe a woman who has just gotten off a plane from New York and drives six hours to come home.  She is warmly greeted at the door by her loving husband and youngest son who have foraged for themselves while she was gone.  She had to suspend her nutrition plan and exercise program during her trip, and she’s fearful of once again stepping on the scale.  She is sure her hard fought 9 pound weight loss before the trip is gone.  She heads for the refrigerator.  The only edible food is cold peperoni pizza.  (Cue scream)   What to do!  She is tired; she is starving; she drove past all the beckoning bright lights of the fast food restaurants on the way home to try to begin the resuscitation of her diet.  The primal need for sustenance is too much to bear.  She eats the pizza knowing she cannot avoid the hard, cold reality the scale will reveal the next morning.  (Fade set until only a bright light shines on the menacing scale waiting on the cold bathroom floor.  As the light fades, we see the scale smirk.)

11.25 (Cut to 5:30 the next morning) We watch the woman hesitantly step on the scale.  She is shocked.  What!  No weight gained in spite of two meals that contained a hamburger, one order of fries, and other questionable foods she had eaten because they were the best choices (that she could afford) while in NY!  Impossible!  She steps off the scale and steps back on.  The scale does not change.  She looks around and lets out a nervous laugh.  She has faithfully followed the nutrition plan and gone to the gym for months with marginal success.  A week of reckless eating and not going to the gym with no weight gain?  This is uncharted territory.  At first there is a sense of relief, but as she walks away, she pauses and throws a puzzle look back at the scale.  She grasps the first hint that perhaps she has stepped on a scale from another reality.

 11.26 – 12.1 (Cue sputtering sound) Fate hands the determined dieter yet another challenge.  We find the woman minus a car which prevents her from going to the grocery store or regaining her regular trips to the gym.   She tries to make the best food choices but is not following the nutrition/exercise plan.  She even imbibed in an enjoyable evening out with her handsome husband at Red Robins. (Cue YUM!)  In spite of her indiscretions, her weight plummets!  Each day she steps on the scale, and it shows the loss of another pound…or even two!  The macabre minimizing continues until she loses seven pounds in six days!   This defies all logic, and we find our women too suspicious to share the news about the weight loss.  She is anxious this is some cruel trick waiting to be exposed.

12.2 – 12.6 Our subject comes down with the sleepless, slimy, horrible, hacking, creepy, coughy crude. She avoids the gym because her friends there would not appreciate her spreading contagious microorganisms.  The mysterious weight loss holds.  Even more bizarre, it hasn’t wavered one ounce in the last five days. The mystery continues.

(Camera slowly pans from the woman on the scale to the weight showing on the scale.) One woman. Trying to find the cause and effect of what she eats and what the scale reveals. Three months of careful eating and dedicated exercise for a slight loss of nine pounds only to lose seven pounds in six days of unrestricted eating.  Has she discovered that her weight loss answer is not found in calories consumed or burned but instead somewhere beyond definition? Or has she simple found herself in another dimension known as the Diet Twilight Zone? (Weight showing on the scale winks.)