Kick fad diets for holistic approach to good health

Spring is here! Through the harsh SoCal winter, we have lain
dormant in our cocoons of excess clothing. Now, like the proverbial
caterpillar, our time has come to bloom into butterflies (like the
ones tattooed on the small of our backs).

Of course, if you’re a freshman, by this time you’ve
bloomed an extra 15 pounds. For many, our first magical fall in
Westwood brought with it the discovery of no exercise,
all-you-can-eat dorm food and cheap beer at frat parties. Before
you know it, it’s swimsuit season again, and like that stupid
“Cathy” newspaper cartoon (you know the one: the
annoying, middle-aged single lady that ends up eating the
chocolates/brownies/fudge in the last panel while her mother/dog
sighs), you’re in full panic mode.

Which is why I dedicate my first spring column to general health
and wellness.

Hector doesn’t only provide in-depth, hard-core sports
analysis; he also brings you his secret for tight glutes and
to-die-for abs in time for summer!

You ready? Lean close, now. So the secret is: get some doggone
exercise and pass on the Doritos, you doggone pig-animal!

Oh, ha ha. Just joshin’. It’s just me, Hector the
kidder. Ha ha.

But no. Really.

I had friends that went on the “soup diet,” the
“grapefruit diet” and the “don’t eat
anything that might get incorporated into the body diet,”
with no results.

Balancing the delicious with the nutritious is definitely
difficult-icious.

There are no magic tricks to a healthy body unless your magic
trick involves lots of running and cutting back on second helpings
of Little Debbies, which might be healthy, but that’s a
pretty sucky magic trick if you ask me.

I yearn for the simpler days of my “dinosaur diet.”
It consisted of me picking whichever food had a picture of
dinosaurs on the packaging. There were no complications like
“food pyramids” or “dietary needs” or
“grams per serving”.

It was simple: T. rex or Velociraptor on the front ““ good.
My Little Pony? Hah! Maybe for my kid sister! Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles? Well, there you get a slightly more nuanced distinction,
but I erred on the side of awesome since they fought Karate.

In high school, my “Taco Boy (which made all other
taco-derived name restaurants bow down) carne asada burrito
diet” got balanced out by water polo and swimming year-round.
I could down two of those bad boys easily, and yet maintain my
svelte figure with just a few laps.

Then came UCLA dorm life. The thing with me is that when I
don’t exercise, I lose weight, not gain it. My arms get
skinny and frail, and I get a potbelly. It gives the illusion that
my head has gotten bigger. I came home for the summer after
freshman year, and when I got my cholesterol checked, it had gone
way up.

So I made lifestyle changes. I joined the gym, added cardio to
my lift-curls-in-front-of-the-mirror-while-sneering regimen, and
cooked for myself. Back at school, I made it a point to go to the
gym or run the perimeter every morning, eat the healthy
alternatives at the dorm, and surround myself with positive
energy.

My alcohol consumption also became more discriminating. Pass on
the Pabst; only the finest of sherries for this fella.

When I told my friend in St. Paul, Minn., Samuel
“Sam” Nalle, about my plan, he was less than
supportive. See, Sam is somewhat “old-fashioned.”

“Oh you Hollywood crazy hippies with your dangfangled
new-age yogas and fancy shmancy sparkling mineral waters and
hoighty toity movie stars,” he said.

So I explained to Sam that I wasn’t degrading his
blue-collar lifestyle. Yes, sometimes a little boozey booze is just
the prescription to treat a case of the “squares,” but
there’s got to be moderation. And taste.

The key is to enjoy life holistically. And life is more rad when
you’ve got the biceps to complement your totally original
barbed wire/tribal tattoo when shirtless at the beach.

Months ago, I wrote about my friend Kevin in Buffalo, N.Y.,
who’s undergoing heavy treatment for leukemia. He’ll be
in the hospital for the next month for a bone marrow transplant, so
if you would like to send some e-wishes to make him feel better,
e-mail [email protected].