Oghmaniacal Blogathon–The Writer’s Scotch and Salad Diet, Part Deux

My first offering to the Oghmaniacal Blogathon. During February, the authors of Oghma Creative Media will blog and reblog their little hearts out. You’ll get a daily sample of their writing and links to their works to brighten up these dreary mid-winter days. If you enjoy their blogs, please give them a “like” and peruse (and maybe purchase) their published works.

In a previous post, we discussed salad (see the Writers Scotch and Salad Diet, Part One). Today, a bit about the second leg of the diet—Scotch—a vital element of my book Just Like Gravity.

Some time ago, a friend and I rationalized that it should be possible to get all the nutrients you need from various alcoholic beverages and mixed drinks:

• Vitamin C and fruit from screwdrivers
• More fruit servings from Mai Tais and wine
• Grain from beer and rye
• Vegetables from bloody marys and so on.

We should, as our reasoning went, be able to drink our way to health.

Extensive research on the proposition revealed varied results ranging from no, it isn’t possible, all the way to what kind of a moron are you, do you want to die? On the advice of our livers and the people who live downstairs and don’t appreciate drunken polo matches at 3 a.m. on a school night, we reluctantly abandoned the pursuit.

My doctor told me to watch my drinking. Now I drink in front of a mirror.
~Rodney Dangerfield

The Writers Scotch and Salad Diet is a direct result of that failure. It should still be possible, we reasoned again, to incorporate a certain amount of booze into one’s diet while still reaching and maintaining a healthy weight. One trip to Wal-Mart and a perusal of the denizens therein told us beer was not the answer.

More research provided added motivation. It turns out that a blood alcohol level of .075 is actually conducive to creativity. The Writers Scotch and Salad diet strives to maintain this level, at least long enough to crank out a few hundred words on the next Work in Progress.

So why Scotch? With 64-98 calories, Scotch and other distilled liquors have the smallest calorie count of the booze food group—upon which the food pyramid floats. And it comes in a magnificent array of flavors. My personal favorite, so far, is Laphroaig. To learn more about the wonders of LaPhroaig, read Just Like Gravity—or see next week’s post.

Aye, but today’s rain is tomorrow’s whiskey.
~Scottish proverb

The trouble is, booze of any kind will slow down the way your body gets rid of fat—and, of course, it will lower your inhibitions making that blueberry cheesecake with whipped cream disappear at an alarming rate.

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.
~Henny Youngman

 

This is where the Writers Scotch and Salad diet gets tough. Successful weight loss on the Writers Scotch and Salad Diet requires steely-eyed determination.

There comes a time in every woman’s life when the only thing that helps is a glass of Champagne.
~Bette Davis

Ways to burn your Scotch calories
• Sing for 50 minutes—Bohemian Rhapsody three times
• Dance or clean the house for 20 minutes—combine the two and dance with your vacuum cleaner
• Garden or rake leaves for 35 minutes—Clean out the salad garden
• Iron for 40 minutes—Nobody does this, but there it is
• Nap for 2 hours—I think you have to do something first to get the metabolism working.
• Sauna for 15 minutes
• Make a homemade meal 40 minutes—If you drink your scotch first, making your salad may take this long.
• Give someone a massage 25 minutes leading to the next bullet item.
• Sex—men expend about 100 calories but women only about 70 so plan accordingly.
• Fly a kite for 20 minutes
• Walk briskly for 15 minutes

Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake.
~W.C. Fields

You could also give up the candy bar after lunch or the wine after dinner. If you give up sugar entirely—a very good idea––you can manage one or two shots without adding much to the calorie count. It depends on how far you are willing to go to make the Writers Scotch and Salad diet work.

(disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist nor do I play one on TV. I just like Scotch. Your results with the Writers Scotch and Salad diet will vary and it is presented here just for fun. If you expected anything else—lighten up.)

More words of wisdom:

I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.
~Frank Sinatra

I once shook hands with Pat Boone and my whole right side sobered up.
~Dean Martin

My dear girl, there are some things that just aren’t done, such as drinking Dom Perignon ’53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit.
~James Bond; Played By Sean Connery in the 1964 film “Goldfinger”

Write drunk; edit sober.
~Ernest Hemingway

A woman drove me to drink and I never even had the courtesy to thank her.
~W. C. Fields

Grab your copy of Just Like Gravity HERE