Dribble Your Way to the Body You Had Years Ago

So you’re still overweight. Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach, Slim-Fast -- you’ve tried them all. But you just can’t lose that excess fat and get back the fit and trim body you used to have.

Well, don’t despair. Help is finally here -- the amazing new Preschooler Diet!

Remember how slender you were and the boundless energy you had as a 3- and 4-year-old? All your baby fat was gone, your skin was smooth, and your head was full of shiny hair and gum. The key to recapturing that ideal body type is to once again eat, and behave, like a preschooler!

It works like this: For breakfast, you have a small Barney-bowl full of Cheerios with 2% milk, four banana slices on the side and a sippy cup of orange juice. Using a spoon with a blue rubber handle, eat half the cereal and dribble the rest of it onto your shirt. Take two big sips of juice, try to gargle with it and then laugh convulsively, causing the juice to shoot out your nose. Mash the banana slices into the table with your fingers.

Lunch is a Bob-the-Builder bowl of Spaghetti-Os (fortified with calcium) and eight green beans and a cup of milk with a straw. Eschewing your spoon with a red rubber handle, eat the Spaghetti-Os with your hands. Wipe excess sauce onto your pants. Make bubbles in your milk. Eat 2 1/2 green beans and then try to force the rest into the straw. Blow with all your might into the bean-stuffed straw.

Your midafternoon snack can be any two of the following: Goldfish crackers, raisins, grapes (cut into eighths to avoid choking), string cheese or apple slices. Eat crackers, raisins and grapes by tossing handfuls of them into the air and seeing how many you can catch in your mouth. Grind the rest into the carpet.

Dinner consists of macaroni and cheese, peas and applesauce. Refuse to eat your macaroni and cheese with only one utensil, and instead use both a fork and a spoon. Alternate bites, first using the fork in your right hand and then using the spoon in your left. Eat the applesauce only with the fork, dripping most of it through the fork prongs. Insert peas into nose.

The key to the Preschooler Diet is not what you eat; rather, the trick is that most of the food ends up on the floor as opposed to in your stomach.

But being disciplined about your diet is not enough; you also have to exercise like a preschooler. This includes riding your trike in the driveway, jumping on the couch, pretending everything is a sword, spinning until you fall down, and crying.

After just a few short weeks on the Preschooler Diet, you’re guaranteed to be as slim, energetic and emotionally unpredictable as you were during those carefree days before your spirit, creativity, and individuality were crushed by organized public schooling.