I've always been perplexed by the fact that "diet" as a noun means "everything you eat," whereas "to diet" as a verb means "to not eat everything."

"I'm going on a diet," people will say, "just as soon as I develop some willpower or something equally implausible happens." Yet those same people will cheerfully admit that their "diet" contains a lot of pie and ice cream — or at least, I'd be cheerful to admit it. Who wouldn't be cheerful, making a statement like that?

Dieters, that's who. To them, if your diet consists of fattening foods, you're not dieting. See why this is perplexing?

To complicate matters further, when you go on a calorie-reduced diet (as opposed to a calorie-celebrating one), your body literally thinks you're starving and begins to fight back. So the part of your body that's trying to fit into a swimsuit is trying to lose weight, while the rest of you is desperately struggling to keep the pounds on to guard against famine.

Never mind that your eyes can go to any shopping mall and plainly see there's no mass starvation going on in this country. As far as the rest of you is concerned, it's time to fill up the aptly named larder.

Stomach: All right, everybody, listen up. As of 0730 hours this morning, we were hit by extreme famine conditions because there was no cinnamon-roll shipment. Instead, we received some sort of grainy, gloopy mass, impossible to digest.

Brain: It was oatmeal, you idiot. It's good for the heart.

Heart: Leave me out of this, those cinnamon rolls were my favorite.

Stomach: Our calorie count has plummeted. I'm afraid our diet has been ruined by dieting. We need operation 'Pounds-Increasing Effort.'

Heart: You mean ... ?

Stomach: That's right: We need P.I.E.

Brain: Oh for heaven's sake.

Stomach: Fat Cells, I want you to forage for whatever you can find and fill your larders with lard. Fruits, diet soda, even lettuce. No matter what he eats, I want you to continue to grow.

Fat Cells: You got it! If need be, we can even gain weight from the air.

Stomach: That's the spirit, Fat Cells.

I'll do my part by making horrendous growling sounds whenever we're in a meeting. Lower Intestines, what are you going to do with all this crazy stuff we're eating?

Lower Intestines: Nothing gets past us, sir. We're on lockdown until further notice.

Stomach: Cramping?

Lower Intestines: Cramping it is, sir.

Nose: I'll expand my recon to include every pizza, hamburger and doughnut shop in a four-block area. If there's delicious food out there, we'll smell it, that's a promise.

Salivary Glands: Soon as that smell hits, I'll flood the mouth. He won't be able to do anything but gulp.

Stomach: That's when I'll kick him where it hurts. He thinks he's had hunger pains before — wait until he gets a load of operation P.I.E.

Muscles: You want pain? The minute he leaves the gym, we'll cripple the fool. We've got troops in places he doesn't even know about, just waiting to go on the attack.

Lungs: I want in on the pain. He gets on that Stairmaster, I'll stop bringing in oxygen.

Heart: If we're oxygen-starved, we're talking brain damage.

Brain: Hey!

Stomach: Oh, what, we're starving but it isn't OK for you to starve?

Brain: We can't live without oxygen, for heaven's sake.

Stomach: Yeah? Well, we can't live without pie, either.

Fat Cells: Also some brownies would be nice. We haven't had those in a while.

Stomach: What's it going to be, Brain? You really going to try to diet and risk the wrath of P.I.E.?

Brain: Well ... I suppose I could supply a few food fantasies.

Stomach: There you go!

Brain: There was the dessert tray of 1999, I've got some excellent footage of that stored in memory I could play in a loop a few thousand times.

Salivary Glands: Operation Dessert Storm! We're juiced just hearing about it!

Stomach: I knew we could count on you, Brain. You've never let us diet before.

(With my diet, I've always found it hard to diet — I guess that's not so perplexing after all.)

To write Bruce Cameron, visit his Website at www.wbrucecameron.com. To find out more about Bruce Cameron and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.

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