Have you seen the latest Weight Watchers ad? The one featuring a woman shopping at a grocery store with a voice over about how diets don’t work but WW does?

Can anyone tell me why is that woman eating in the grocery store? I didn’t believe it the first time I saw it, so I rewound the DVR and, yep, sure enough: she’s standing there in a grocery aisle chowing down.

Oh, sure, WW probably intended for the ad to reflect well on them. But, frankly, the only thing that ad leaves me thinking is that if I do WW I’m going to be one of those people who eat in the grocery store.

Although I said I wasn’t going to make a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight (preferring, instead, to simply resolve that I won’t gain any, either), I’ve nevertheless found myself on a diet.

I blame this on the recent discovery that my bathroom mirror is in no way related to my car’s rear view mirror and, thus, objects seen in it really are larger than they appear. Or at least that’s what my jean size seems to be saying.

Still, I refuse to come straight out and say that I’m on a diet. In my house, that announcement prompts loud groans since it’s often followed by a week of bland, tasteless broiled chicken, brown rice and steamed broccoli for dinner then glares and outrage whenever my husband or kids — who cannot stand brown rice or steamed broccoli — find me standing at the fridge eating ice cream straight from the container. I am, instead, simply watching what I eat.

And that makes me grumpy.

Very grumpy.

It’s not simply because I, too, hate brown rice and broccoli. It’s because my husband has no idea whatsoever about how to live with a woman who is, for all practical purposes, on a diet. So I’ve decided to share some tips which I’ll be emailing the man together with a warning that failing to follow them just might result in the loss of life or limb.

1. Do not ask how my diet is going. When I hear that question my brain interprets it as, “It doesn’t look like you’re losing weight. Are you SURE you’re on a diet?” That triggers the cycle of impatience and frustration which leads to those 2 a.m. refrigerator raids.

2. Do not tell me that you’re proud of me for being good on my diet. Yes, I know you think you’re being encouraging and I appreciate the sentiment. But such praise only makes me terrified of letting you down if I slip up and have a bite of chocolate. That kind of guilt is only assuaged by having yet more chocolate, and next thing I know I feel like I’ve disappointed both of us.

3. Do not roll your eyes when I serve ‘diet food’ at dinner. Of course baked fish and a tossed salad with low-fat dressing doesn’t taste nearly as good as a ribeye with a loaded baked potato. Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I’d rather be having steak, too? If you know some other way to achieve weight loss besides dieting, please market it so we can get rich. Until then you, at least, have the luxury of knowing that you can always order a burger tomorrow on your lunch break. So shut up about tonight’s dinner already, ok?

4. Do not snack in front of me. I mean it! I’m fat because I have a hard time saying ”No” to food. You wouldn’t swill from a bottle of beer while visiting someone in alcohol rehab. Don’t eat in front of me. Dieting means having to say no all the time. Not just to second helpings at dinner. Not just to dessert. I have to say “No” every time I pass the cupboard or refrigerator or the snack aisle in the convenience store. Don’t you dare make it more difficult by sitting arm’s length away nibbling on potato chips because I might just start looking for something heavy or sharp that is also arm’s length away.

5. Don’t tell me I deserve dessert as a reward, either. I am not a puppy. I do not need treats. If I do decide to have a treat then I will be the one to choose when I deserve it. The only thing you’re trying to accomplish is getting my permission to eat your hot fudge sundae in front of me. I suggest re-reading that last section if you value the solidity of your skull.

6. Don’t call me cute names thinking you’re being supportive. Coming home and saying “Hi, Skinny!” only makes me wonder if you stopped for Happy Hour after work. I know I’m not skinny. You know I’m not skinny. I know you know I’m not skinny. I also know — as you should, too — that it’s going to take a lot of carrot sticks, sweat and time before I’m skinny again if that ever happens.

7. Don’t ask how my work out was. First, you’re assuming that I did work out at all. If I didn’t, you only made me feel guilty and, once again, that’s best assuaged by chocolate. Second, my brain translates that question the same way as any inquiry into how my diet’s going. All I hear is “When are you going to start looking thinner???”

8. Don’t fix me snacks that you think are healthy. You can’t win on this one. That turkey burger you made me stopped being healthy the instant you threw it in a pan full of oil, long before you slapped mayo on the bun made from processed white flour and topped it with a slice of cheese. I appreciate the thought — and not having to cook for a change — but, really, since you’ve never had to diet let’s just agree that you don’t know the first thing about how to cook something diet-friendly.

9. Don’t walk in on me while I’m working out. If I liked to exercise I’d be thin already. I hate it. I also know that, because I’m not thin, I don’t look nearly as good as those spandex-clad girls on my workout tapes. Don’t walk in while I’m trying to tune out the misery by concentrating on how much I hate those women. All you’ll do is make me self-conscious of how much more of my body jiggles than theirs.

10. Don’t tell me that sex burns calories. Believe me, even with the most frantic activity, two minutes won’t burn off the calories in that cup of broccoli I had for dinner. Oh, and by the way, if you happened to have broken Rule Number 9, you don’t even need to get your hopes up that I’ll be in the mood for a little in-the-sack workout anyway.

If you spend much online time reading diet and health news, you’re bound to have heard about the Kimkims diet scam, a low-carb (fee-based) program created by a woman who used the screen name “Kimmer”.

For years, “Kimmer” kept her real identity under wraps while she boasted of losing more than 200 pounds in a year and keeping it off for five years. Basically, her official plan was a self-made variation of the early Atkins program promoting very lean meats, little fat and 3 cups of fresh (or 1/2 cup cooked) vegetables each day.

That, at least, is what she publicly recommended and the story run by publications like Women’s World. But that wasn’t the real plan that “Kimmer” purportedly followed, nor the one that the majority of her (paid) members followed, either.

Within the safety of their members-only site “Kimmer” promoted the “plan behind the plan” which encourages dieters to consume as little as 500 calories per day and applauds when they reach a state where they are SNATT, an acronym for the Sick and Nauseous All The Time feeling triggered by near-starvation.

That’s what “Kimmer” did to lose 200 pounds, many reasoned, so why shouldn’t they give it a try, too? Except she didn’t lose that weight, and neither she nor any of the women sharing their “before/after” testimonials on her site were who they claimed to be.

Kimmer’s contract permitted her to buy out her 50% partner’s interest in the Kimkins enterprise after 12 months for a lump sum, with the buy out price escalating over time thereafter. Sure enough, Kimmer did tell her partner, Catherine, that she wanted to buy her out, and so Catherine left the company entirely in Kimmer’s hands.

Then Kimmer began a smear campaign against Catherine, attempting to impugn her integrity. And that pissed of Catherine’s husband, who hired a private investigator to learn just who Kimmer really was.

Kimmer had told Catherine that her name is Heidi Diaz, and that name also appeared on her PayPal records as well as the company’s press releases. Those releases, it turns out, also included Diaz’s home phone number which was easily cross-referenced with her home address. So the PI ran the license plate number of the woman living at that address. They came back registered to one Heidi Kimberly Diaz who, as it turns out, anything but the 118 pound beauty in the “after” photos of herself she’d posted online.

As the surveillance photos reveal, Diaz (a/k/a Kimmer) is morbidly obese and well into middle age. This revelation sent shockwaves through the internet and prompted Diaz to claim that she really had lost all that weight but gained it back due to personal reasons she wouldnt’ go into.

But that was another lie.

Diaz’s former husband jumped in to comment at a forum on the scam and explained that Diaz never lost weight and, worse yet, has had repeated legal problems stemming from various scams and cons she’s run. According to the comment, she lives on disability payments due to mental illness and gets by using her son Brandon’s credit now that he’s over 18.

Problems apparently run in the family, if this email from the ex-girlfriend of Diaz’s son is to be believed. Brandon’s ex says he abandoned their child together, and that both he and Diaz are alcoholics.

The legal troubles don’t end there, either, folks.

Several times on her blog, “Kimmer” wrote of her duties as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for children and claimed to be a foster parent, although none of the insiders at her site ever met her foster kids much less received notices of graduations or communion invitations. She told staff that she would donate membership proceeds to a fund that would provide homes for her foster children when they reached the age of majority.

The email from Brandon’s ex-girlfriend referenced above does allude to Diaz having two foster children at one point, but no one has been able to confirm that. As for being a CASA volunteer, court personnel have told others that Diaz was not and has never been registered with CASA.

A lawsuit has been filed against Diaz and Kimkims, and the 11 attorneys representing the litigants are seeking class action certification.

And it is entirely possible that Heidi Kimberly Diaz — a/k/a “Kimmer” — may one day be slapped with a copyright lawsuit over photos posted on the Kimkims website. Heidi, you see, posted one rather infamous picture — now known as “The woman in the red dress” — claiming that it revealed her stunning weight loss success. It turns out, however, that the photo was actually lifted from a Russian dating site. (See what Heidi now claims to look like — and weigh — here.)

But it wasn’t just Heidi’s photo that was faked. Numerous “after” photos of various Kimkims success stories were stolen directly from overseas online dating sites.

Which poses the question: how did real people do on the Kimkins diet?

Unfortunately, many of those Kimmer scammed have wound up in the hospital with grave health problems brought on by the near-starvation, high-laxative diet recommended by this con artist who seems to justify her scam by pointing out that, hey, they’re thin.

If you’ve been scammed, find information about the lawsuit here.

I’m one of those strange people who actually reads cookbooks, page by page, cover to cover. My husband considers this a very strange habit but then again he doesn’t get the same thing out of reading them that I do: I can practically taste each recipe as I read it.

I can look through the ingredients and know approximately what flavors will be in the forefront and which will act as undernotes. I can imagine a recipe’s “mouth feel”, its textures and density, the heft of each bite on my spoon or fork. I almost always know, without having even cooked a recipe yet, whether it’s something I’m going to like or not.

Being able to call to mind a particular food I’m in the mood for, and the pleasure of experiencing what I’d imagined, is what derails my efforts at dieting over and over again.

I don’t, for instance, find myself imagining a big leafy salad misted lightly with lemon juice. I don’t think I have ever once in my life craved grilled skinless chicken breasts so tough you need a Swiss Army knife to cut through them, or a plate full of of steamed broccoli and brown rice. And the only time I even think of cottage cheese and cantaloupes is when I look at my naked self in the mirror.

I like spice. I like sauteed onions and garlic and the bright bites of fresh basil. I like the feel of my teeth crunching into the of a baguette, then the slow, yeasty aroma that wafts up a I tear into the light center. I like the heavy, smoky flavor of slow-roasted meats; the creamy, dense tang of good cheese; the musky nuttiness of sesame oil; the sibilant whisper of noodles plucked from steaming broth and slurped through my lips.

I’ve often suspected that if I could find a diet plan that incorporates these tastes while also being low in fat and calories, I might just be able to stick with that diet. And, it turns out, I’m not alone, although it’s not clear whether being overweight is the cause or the result of this need for toothsome tastes:

New research indicates that overweight people hate bland diets as they have a greater need for strong and intense flavours and aromas. The right way to ensure that food is kept exciting and enticing is to go big on ethnic food [...] using the spices of the Middle East and India, the herbs and vegetables of the Mediterranean, the succulent fruits of the tropics and the more exotic grains and pulses. All these are, or can be, staples of a calorie-reduced diet.

All of which makes me wonder if Jenny Craig has an Asian or East Indian counterpart. If so, I want to sign up for that plan!

I’d been doing so good avoiding wheat and dairy products this past week. I’d really felt some benefits, too: less congestion, no stomach problems, and I’d even lost a pound.

Saturday morning, I woke up with a lovely sore throat and a bad case of laryngitis. I get it every winter and spring — it must have something to do with the change of seasons. Needless to say, I didn’t feel up to all of the scrubbing, peeling, and chopping involved with making sure 90% of my daily food intake is raw grains, fruits or vegetables.

So we ordered pizza, and it was wonderful. Cheesy, saucy and loaded with pepperoni. (Yes, that means I ate meat, too.)

Today? I’m so bloated that my fingers are puffed above and below my diamond rings, making my hands look cartoonish. My skin’s broken out, and my stomach feels like I’m carrying a bowling ball around in there.

The only upside to this, as far as my husband’s concerned, is that I still have laryngitis, which means he doesn’t have to listen to me whining about how miserable I feel. Silly man: he forgets I can still text message and email him all about it.

A friend of mine recently became a raw foods fanatic and dropped a whopping 65 pounds in four months. That’s right: sixty-five pounds. That’s not even the biggest improvement she’s experienced since changing her diet.

No, the real benefit has been an improvement in her own allergies which are almost as bad as mine. Once she cut out gluten, sugar, dairy and soy, her congestion cleared up and she stopped getting sinus headaches. (She’s since slowly reintroduced wheat and soy products without problems, only to find that her allergies returned the instant she started on dairy products again.)

Back when my husband was out of town for a month, I eliminated a number of foods from my diet, too, although without intentionally doing so. I simply wasn’t preparing “man meals” in his absence and, instead, had beefed up my consumption of salads, fruits and vegetables. I felt wonderful, and even though it was the height of the summer allergy season, I didn’t have one single sinus infection or headache.

That tells me something.

Meanwhile, my diet’s slid back to “man eating” with a steady and shameful stream of red meat, processed foods and precious few fruits or vegetables. Just how few wasn’t obvious to me until I started keeping a food log last week to see if anything in particular was triggering my allergy symptoms.

Is it any wonder I feel like crap when my week’s intake of fruit and vegetables is less than what a person is supposed to eat in two days? I’m no rocket scientist, but even I can see there might be a connection.

So, I bought a juicer yesterday and a book on Raw Foods Made Easy for 1 or 2 People, then I announced to my husband that there are going to be some changes in the food around here.

Oh, I don’t intend to force him to slug down cucumber frappes or carrot-and-apple smoothies. He’d rather starve than consume something that — gasp! — actually grew from the ground. But if I continue to eat as he does until my ass will soon be as large as a stereo cabinet, and I’ll feel even worse than I already do.

But I did make it clear that if he wants to keep “man eating”, then he’s going to have to do some “man cooking”. I’m giving my oven — and my body — a break for a while. I’m getting juiced.

A while back I signed up for Jenny Craig in the hope that getting out of the kitchen might actually help me lose weight. I’m one of those cooks who nibbles a bit while slicing vegetables, then a bit more after putting them in the pot, with another nibble or two once things have had a chance to simmer. Heck, between the prep work and actual serving time, I’ve often nibbled my way through an entire meal.

I’d really wanted to like the Jenny Craig food. Truly, I did. Unfortunately, the first time I popped open a beige can of equally beige tuna salad and smelled it led to a reverse-bulimic like moment: I gagged, but I hadn’t even had a bite yet. The enchiladas were somewhat better, although I wound up adding a cup of salsa, some green chile peppers, half an avocado and some salt just to get it to taste remotely like Mexican food. The only thing I didn’t have to “doctor” was the lasagna.

After one month, I’d only lost one pound, and that was following a week-long cold that pretty much killed my appetite for anything.

Unfortunately, I’d signed up for the “auto-ship” program which meant that a second month’s supply of bland, miserable food arrived on my doorstep without any warning. It’s still in my freezer, untouched and unwanted. I like to think of it as my 3-day emergency supply of food for the family in the event some catastrophe forces us to eat it. A tornado, perhaps, or maybe Armageddon.

I didn’t realize, until now, that it was even possible to ship the stuff back to Jenny Craig. After reading this story about Lisa Bustle, who was equally disappointed with NutriSystem’s meals, I checked and found out that I could, indeed, have returned the stuff. If I’d been prompt about it, that is.

Bustle didn’t know there was a time limit, and took a few months to actually return the freeze dried food to Nutrisystem. She expected a full refund. But the company told her she waited too long and wouldn’t get money or her food back.

“I had nothing. I mean how would you feel? I paid for something and sent it back and now I don’t even have the product or the money, so I felt slighted,” she said.

Luckily for Bustle, a news channel intervened and convinced NutriSystem to return the food to her. But not the money. Which means that, like me, she’s got a freezer full of food that will only look appetizing following a natural disaster, but no appreciable weight loss.

Hmmm… maybe I ought to ship the stuff off to those starving children Sally Struthers is always going on about?

My little boy has had a cold all week and now I’m battling it myself.

This unfortunately comes right after Janet sent me her Alli starter pack, having decided she’s not going to use it herself. I’d just run out of my own supply, but didn’t want to completely derail my diet, so I’m really grateful for her generosity!

Only problem: my two favorite “home remedies” for nasty colds — chicken soup with matzo balls and strawberry ice cream — both involve a bit more fat than Alli allows. (And I know better than to tempt that limit again. *shudder*)

Meanwhile, I can’t remember if I’m supposed to “feed a cold” or “starve a cold”.

Not that it matters, thanks to all of the TheraFlu I’ve been swilling. I’m too groggy to know if I’m hungry and too tired to do anything about it if I am.

I’m starting on Alli again today, thanks to a friend who found out the hard way that she’s just not capable of cutting her fat intake back to the 30 grams or less required to avoid the “unwanted treatment effects”. Her loss (and lack thereof) is my gain since she gave me the rest of her bottle for free.

Meanwhile, Amazon is running a one-day special on Alli 90 capsule starter pack (a 60 day supply) for $41.99 instead of the usual $59.99.

That deal expires at midnight, though.

So many of the diet options out there insist on three meals and two snacks per day, beginning with breakfast. I’ve never been a breakfast person. Ever, ever, ever.

Even on days when I have only a salad for dinner, I simply don’t wake up hungry. Now, waking up craving coffee? Oh, yeah, I definitely do that.

I always find it humorous to read about people who — like me — are trying to lose weight and yet aren’t morning eaters. They moan and groan over having a morning meal, and everyone assures them they must eat. “It’s the most important meal of the day,” the saying goes.

But consider this: one of the things everyone with extra weight knows we’re supposed to re-learn is the habit of eating only when we’re hungry. Not when we’re bored. Not because the clock says it’s time to. Not as a way to relieve stress. We are to eat when we’re hungry and stop when we’re not. (Ideally, we’re supposed to learn what hunger actually feels like, too.)

I’ve often found that my best weight loss happens when I “forget” to eat — then find myself at dinner time absolutely hungry to begin with, but full after the first helping. It runs counter to all of the talk about keeping your metabolism up by eating regularly, I know, but it works for me. And if it works, I’m not going to argue with it.

Apparently, I’ve been following the Houseguest Diet:

It’s quite simple: you can eat anything you like. But only once a day. And it has to be food already in the house, you’re only allowed one paper towel to eat it with – no dishes, utensils or pots, and you have to eat over the sink. The rest of the time you can drink as much tap water as you like – but straight from the faucet please.

As the article notes, you never really realize how much work goes into feeding a person until you’ve got a houseguest. By the time you’ve finished cooking, eating and cleaning up after one meal it’s already time for another. If houseguests are my in-laws, there are also snacks and desserts to be prepared, served and cleaned up after, too.

I’d love to put them on this diet. Hell, I’d even join them myself if I thought starving my mother-in-law would in any way diminish the appeal of visiting my home.