Writing and Weight Loss

By Robert J. Wetherall

Watch those excess pounds simply fall away with every well-turned phrase and polished sentence!

Yes, it’s unbelievable but true, my good and loyal followers:  Those among you who write well are also destined to magically maintain your proper weight and inevitably take on the appearance of Adonis. 

But do the rest of us have to face life looking like overfed circus bears? No. Because it turns out, lousy writers can experience beneficial weight loss as well.

This entire subject has been the focus of intense study by The National Institute of Writing, Weight Loss & Welding, founded by my friend, Eddie Salinski.

According to institute spokespersons, this remarkable and unexpected link between writing and weight loss can be attributed to several factors.  Among them:

Starvation:  It’s easy to trim off those excess pounds when you’re starving. And such is the predicament of many writers, including those who do it often and well.  Indeed, great writing does not always translate into great riches.

Success:  Yet, success can play a role in weight loss as well. The Institute says writers who are rolling in royalties are also eating out frequently and being interviewed in establishments that serve items like quiche, sprouts, and calamari.  Thus, inability to consume—and ultimate weight loss.

Depression:  It’s axiomatic: If you’re feeling blue and don’t eat, you lose weight. The Institute says writers who take rejection letters seriously or have encounters with literary agents always experience episodes of projectile vomiting, lack of appetite, thus, the pounds evaporate.

Exercise:  Happy, well-adjusted writers litter the walking and biking paths of our nation and clog the halls of places like Lifetime Fitness and Eddies Exercise Emporium (plug!). This activity results in elevated caloric burning with attendant weight loss. 

Diet: And finally, there is that tiny segment of excellent writers who, through no fault of their own, actually maintain a proper diet from the get-go, with inborn discipline and diligence.  There’s one of them in every crowd, planted there by the gods to make the rest of us feel bad.  Ignore them.

Myself, I like the attitude of Institute founder, Eddie Salinski. According to Eddie, “We’ve been hearing about starving painters for years, but there are plenty of starving writers out there, too. Weight loss is second nature to them and they have all learned to exist on minimal nutrition levels without whining.  I respect those folks.”

Eddie likes to point to the experience of one of the Institute’s first patients as evidence linking writing and weight loss:  Earl Corduroy weighed 460 pounds when he surrendered himself to the care of the Institute.  Their counselors immediately put him on a heavy creative writing schedule.  Although Earl had never written anything more pithy than a laundry list in his life, he began churning out gobs of prose.

A key requirement of Earl’s treatment was that he had to read everything he wrote. His work so thoroughly sickened him that he went into a huge sulk, stopped eating altogether and eventually hanged himself from his bedpost.  Members of his treatment team who had also read his work were also thoroughly sickened and experienced massive weight loss. At Corduroy’s funeral, it required only two pallbearers to lug his casket, so delicate and frail were the remains of the newly departed.

Happily, this episode provided solid proof of the Institute’s theories. Now, whenever I find myself gaining excess poundage, I simply read some of my own stuff. With the gagging that usually follows, the weight comes off effortlessly.

Try it on your own stuff and see for yourself.