Advice to Paunch

Dear Blue Velvet,

I think I might be chubby.  I'm not really overweight, but I could stand to lose about ten pounds.  I like to drink and party.  Do you have any dieting tips for me?

Thanks,
Paunch

Dear Paunch,

I assume that you've heard of consuming less calories than you burn, right?  That really works.  Nowadays, I usually fluctuate between 105-115 pounds.  However, during my teenage years through about age 22, I weighed 90 pounds. I attributed my teeny, tiny, nearly unattainable frame to exclusively consuming either soup broth or one ounce of Special K cereal per day, relentlessly exercising and smoking copious amounts of pot.  Smoking pot?  Yes.  I'll explain how weed kept me waif-ish. 

In the beginning, being a stoner was great.  I was relaxed, giggly, I understood what the fuck Rene Descartes was trying to say when he said, "I think, therefore I am." I never made drunk dials or woke up with a hangover or worse.  Best of all:  I rarely consumed--save for the very occasional case of late night munchies--extraneous calories, such as those contained in alcohols.  The end result, was a thin, thin me.  I was convinced that I would be a lifer, and perhaps even grow my own one day.  Then it happened:  Paranoia.

My theory is that my pot induced paranoia started to creep in after a rendezvous with some bad acid.  The details of the trip that transpired from this particular hit of acid cannot and should not be explained on this blog.  It was so horrific that when I finally stopped tripping--I'm talking days here--I called my motherfucking drug dealer and demanded a fucking refund. Surprisingly, he gave me one.  He must have received a lot of complaints from that batch.  (Side bar:  Let's pour some out for Jamie, the refund granting drug dealer, for recently he became dead and gone.  My second former drug dealer, the first being Fat Matt, to have perished in the past five years.  Yes, attending the funeral of a man you only know through street drugs, yet somehow know well, is rather strange.)

The end result of all of the literal madness was that I could no longer physically or emotionally handle being a pot aficionado.  I began to weird out all of my friends.  I quit cold turkey*. I decided to start drinking beer as an alternative, which really packed on the pounds in terms of its own calories and the additional calories from late night trips to White Castle for french fries and cheese sticks.  In a matter of months I went from a less than zero to a two and sometimes even the dreaded four.  "The buzz must go on!" I reasoned, "I cannot face life as a sober person!"  Inevitably, I started to research ways to drink and stay thin.  As a steady size two, I will share these tips with you, Paunch.

1.  Watch "The Karen Carpenter Story".  Take notes. 
2.  Count your calories.  If your desired weight is 110lbs, find out what the calorie allotment is to maintain a weight of 110lbs and subtract all of the alcohol calories you plan to consume from your daily ration.  For example, if you can have 1400 calories per day, but you want to get wasted that night, you should probably only have a bowl of soup and a cracker as your one meal for the day.  I strongly suggest that you leave a cushion of at least 300 calories for incidentals such as shots or french fries.
3.  If you fuck up and overeat or imbibe, go to your local drug store and pick up some Syrup of Ipecac.  I'm not going to lie, this magic elixir and friend to all bulimics will fuck you up for a few days.  It is to only be used in cases of extreme weakness. 
4.  Maintain a baseline of being at least mildly depressed most of the time.  If you start to feel happy or hopeful, remind yourself that the world is a terrible place and everyone is out to ruin you.  Repeat as necessary.
5.  Tape this quote to your refrigerator:  "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" ~Kate Moss

Try these tips, Paunch, and keep me abreast of your progress.  Always remember:  Nobody likes fat people.  Nobody.

Love,
BV
*After many years, I am finally able to sometimes take bong rips or puff on a spliff.