CI #49 -- The Taco Bell Diet

That's right. From the people who brought you Fourth Meal, it's the Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet. This isn't a joke.

Well, it is. But it's more tragicomedy than straight comedy. (I see Paul Giamatti in the movie version.)

In case you haven't been lucky enough to see these commercials, allow me: Internet Friends, Christine. Female Jared, I mean Christine, Internet Friends.

She lost 54 pounds by eating 1,250 calories per day, choosing from 7 incredible Tacotastic choices with only 9 grams of fat or less!

Now those are results you can sink your teeth into!

What can we say about this? There aren't enough hours in the day, so let's simply play find the clues to a bad diet.

#1. It involves the phrase "drive-thru."
For some reason, you actually aren't allowed to walk through a drive-thru, so this is blatantly discouraging exercise. Then again, why exercise to lose weight when you can gordita your way to a better body by eating at...

#2. It involves the phrase "Taco Bell"
I actually can't stand Taco Bell. Never could. It may be the fact that I can't hold a "meal" of theirs in for an entire hour or the fact that Fast Food Nation told me they used the lowest-grade meat available (aside from prisons and our public schools -- some fact checking possibly needed).

But let's face it; you're bound to lose weight through diarrhea. So on that point, you win, Taco Bell! If the Big TB doesn't give you the Big D, then good for you, ... I guess? Puts a whole new meaning in "run for the border" nailed it! okay sorry about that.

#3. It involves the phrase "1250 calories a day"
The FDA recommends average women consume 2000 calories a day. By that rationale, I (or female me) could lose weight by consuming only 1250 calories of anything. Yes, even baby fat. [Whisper voice] You don't even have to eat at Taco Bell for this diet to work. That's the beauty of it, people!

#4. This is the marketing equivalent of pushing "Beer that doesn't get you drunk!"
But here's the thing: we want to get drunk. No one goes to Taco Bell to lose weight. You go there when you're hungover, broke, and/or in college.

If you're in Taco Bell, eating a 1/2-lb cheesy potato burrito (an actual item), you want to enjoy it. It's a guilty pleasure. Eating healthily at Taco Bell is like going to Vegas during Lent. It's cheap masochism.

Check your conscience at the door, and dig in. And if you end up questioning your life choices, make different choices (ones that don't involve switching from a #2 to a #8).


This post has been sponsored by the "One Adlai Stevenson Reference Shy of a Dennis Miller Bit Foundation."