Doug Lief Lief is a fourth-year English
student with the finely toned body of a comedian. Spot him at
[email protected].
Somehow I managed to put on my freshman fifteen in my senior
year (damn my cooking skills). As a response, I’ve begun to
eat right and exercise to lose a few pounds but as we all know,
that’s just the lie the salad lobby has been able to
perpetrate. Thankfully, for those of us looking to be perfect (as
is required by the opposite sex) there are other, more
quack-oriented methods of getting in shape.
The two I chose to focus on are the Carb Fighter (which are
pills), and the electropads, both of which you have seen advertised
on TV but not sold in stores. You’ve all been curious about
how they work, but you probably figure you’d feel stupid
blowing the money on them if they didn’t work. Thankfully,
I’m stupid enough for all of you.
 Illustration by JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin Normally
you’d want to consult a physician before embarking on
poisoning and electrocuting yourself, but I figured these products
weren’t any more lethal than what I consumed at the party I
threw last Saturday. According to the carb-fighter Web site,
“The ingredients for the Carb Fighter are Chromium (as
chromium diniconate glycinate), Phaseolamin (the extract of the
Northern White Kidney Bean), Gymnema Sylvestre leaf, Bitter Melon
fruit, Garcinia Cambogia fruit extract 50 percent, Hydroxycitrate
extract and Vanadium (as vanadyl sulfate).”
Vanadium? Vanadium? I’m a north campus fella, but
I’m fairly sure vanadium is one of those elements no one ever
uses for anything like technetium or antimony. Unless you’re
Robocop, I doubt you need much of vanadium or chromium for that
matter. Most of those ingredients sound about as crazy as ester of
wood rosin (my heretofore favorite, mystery soft-drink additive).
If any of you readers know what ester of wood rosin is, please let
me know so I can have one less reason to be terrified of Mountain
Dew.
The carb-fighter system works by preventing your body from
absorbing the carbohydrates in starches that it usually immediately
stores as fat. What this really means is the pill streamlines your
colon into Six Flags: Hurricane Harbor. On the pill you can eat all
the cake and bread pudding you want but since it won’t be
absorbed, it will mount an expedition to find its way out by any
means necessary.
The upshot of this is that you supposedly will look much better
rising from a pool, provided you do so in slow motion. Actually,
walking in slow motion is probably best if you’re overweight,
as the reduced velocity will greatly decrease the amount of
jiggling, or “cellulite seismology” as professional
nutritionists refer to it.
Against this fanciful backdrop of intestinal distension, I began
using what amounts to a bite-size defribulator. You strap these
pads to your stomach that then emit small electric shocks designed
to contract your muscles over and over for a long period of time
until they get all ripped and veiny. This is great for those who
want the full robust aerobic workout of an epileptic seizure
without the messy cleanup.
Actually, wearing the ab gizmo is closer to having rapid-fire
hiccups or dry heaves, depending on your tastes. Unfortunately, I
made the critical mistake of eating a Hershey’s Kiss prior to
using the machine and accidentally ingested a tiny amount of foil.
This caused sparks to shoot out of my stomach. I am generally
inclined to believe that internal ionization is an anathema to
better health, seeing as ozone should not be escaping from my
esophagus at any time.
But this experiment required further and more in-depth testing.
While the machine could shock my flabby stomach into submission,
could it have a positive effect on my face? Granted, the ab thingy
was not designed to be attached to a human head, but this kind of
research is why the Daily Bruin pays me the big bucks. Actually, I
write for the glory.
So anyway, I was electrocuting my face (for the glory), and I
began to notice discrete signs of Roy Scheiderism. That is, when a
human male face is subjected to constant minor electric shock, it
contracts and contorts itself until it resembles the tortured
countenance of Roy Scheider of “Jaws,”
“2010” and “Sea Quest.” You can achieve a
similar effect without the electricity by liberally applying rubber
bands to your head.
If you think the carb-fighters and ab- shockers are too
expensive, you can make them from common household items. For a
stopgap ab thingy, simply take a radio into the bathtub with you
and dance the calories away. And if you want a cheap carb-fighting
system, your finger applied correctly to the back of the throat
will prevent all sorts of fat-inducing nutrients from dangerous
absorption.
Some may criticize these advances as quackery, modern-day snake
oil hocked at the fat and gullible but to you naysayers, I say
“nay.” Take it from me, proper diet and exercise are a
thing of the past. As I lie here on the floor of my bathroom, red
from electrical burns, barely conscious, distended, hiccuping,
covered in my own fluids with the face of Roy Scheider, I can only
think to myself, “Damn, now I look sexy.”