One of my New Year’s resolutions was to lose weight. Imagine that. That’s why I found myself wrestling with half a grapefruit at lunch today. Taming that grapefruit took a lot more effort than it ever did to wolf down my usual lunch; a Supersized Big Mac Value Meal. I worked up a sweat digging out the juicy bits stubbornly clinging to the bottom, and, when one citric acid squirt got me square in the eye, must have burned off 200 calories doing the Angry Swearing Dance of Owwie Pain.
Foods in their natural states are generally both lower in calories and a whole lot more work to get mouth-ready. Processed foods, by their very definition, have already been processed. All you have to do is open the package. (1) These facts are the building blocks for Peg-Co’s revolutionary new weight loss plan…
The Work-for-it Diet.
The nutritionistas at Peg-Co have done lots and lots of really scientific research to come up with this plan. With the Work-for-it-Diet you avoid all processed foods. You’ll lose weight naturally, organically, by eating only things you grow, hunt, gather and prepare yourself. Our cardinal rule is:
If you didn’t bag it, you can’t eat it. (2)
A couple of examples will dramatically illustrate how much more effort natural foods require than (practically) the exact same food in its processed state.
Zebra
- Buy a big gun
- Learn to shoot
- Fly to Africa
- Go on safari
- Camp out in the bush
- Shoot zebra
- Skin zebra
- Marinate zebra in a combination of soy sauce, garlic and olive oil for approximately 8 hours (15 minutes if no refrigeration available)
- Gather wood
- Make bonfire
- Cook zebra
- Eat zebra
- Contract intestinal parasite resulting in the loss of zebra and rest of the contents of your digestive tract, from both ends, round the clock for the next 7 days
Calories gained: negative 30,000
Little Debbie Zebra Cakes
- Drive to store
- Buy box of Little Debbie Zebra Cakes
- Open box via EZ-rip perforated strip
- Open cellophane wrapper on individually wrapped cake
- Eat zebra cake
- Repeat until box is empty
Calories gained: 4,000
Apple
- Plant apple seed
- Provide sun, rain and fertilizer for 10 years until you have an apple tree capable of bearing fruit
- Spray pesticides like Alar so worms and bugs leave a little for you
- Build, equip and maintain migrant housing that is fully compliant with all ADA, OSHA and INS regulations
- Fail OSHA inspection, can’t hire workers, harvest apple yourself
- Wash the hell out of apple to remove all traces of Alar which leading scientists like Meryl Streep say causes children to be born with 5 heads
- Eat apple
Calories gained: 50
Appletini
- Go to bar
- Order Appletini
- Drink Appletini
- Order Appletini #2
- Drink Appletini
- Order Appletini #3
- Drink Appletini
- Make bad food choice and single-handedly consume entire fried Blooming Onion
- Order Appletini #…#… who’s counting?
- Drink Appletini
- Make bad life choice and hook up with loser you wouldn’t have given the time of day pre-Appletini
Calories gained: 5,400
With the Peg-Co diet, you’ll see dramatic results right away and will look like a high-fashion runway model in no time. Heck, you’ll be lucky if you can take in enough calories to sustain basic human bodily functions!
One of our many, satisfied customers.
How much would you expect to pay to unlock the secrets of permanent weight loss forever – $100? $1000? $1,523,789??? Put away your wallet, because the Work-For-It Diet is FREE. You read that right. Motivated solely by concern for the well-being and health of mankind, Peg-Co is providing this life-changing diet absolutely FREE. Call and the Work-For-it-Diet, printed on a sheet of high quality, 20-pound copy paper, will be rushed to you via 3rd class mail. Just pay the separate low, low, shipping and handling charge in four EZ installments of $29.99 each. You’re welcome.
Reserve your FREE copy of the Peg-Co Work-For-It Diet today. Money back if you are not completely satisfied! (Except for the separate low, low shipping and handling charge in four EZ installments of $29.99 each. We keep that. ) Peg-Co operators are standing by, so call now!(3)
(1) Although still somewhat easier than tracking and bagging live prey, opening a modern package is often a challenge in and of itself. Why do packages, especially those wrapped in cellophane, rip everywhere EXCEPT along the seam where you want it to, with the result that you have breakfast cereal, beef jerky or Little Debbie Zebra Cakes flying all over the place? I have 2 nephews in the packaging business and a third in college studying to join them, and whenever I am foiled by a confounded package, I shake my fist at the sky and yell, “Curse you packaging nephews!” Feel free to do the same – it helps to vent a little spleen.
(2) The one exception to the cardinal rule is that tap and bottled water are allowed. The Peg-Co nutritionistas decided it might be unreasonable to require each dieter to dig their own well.
(3) Neither Peg-Co nor its parent company, Peg-o-Leg Industries, is responsible for any bad stuff that could possibly happen while on the Work-For-It Diet, including but not limited to:
- being stranded in an unstable country during a military coup while on safari
- getting sick from mushrooms you gathered which you thought were those yummy kind you’ve had sauteed in butter at nice restaurants, but it turns out there’s a poisonous kind that looks just like them
- tickets and fines for taking down squirrels and assorted small animals in the neighborhood if hunting is not allowed within city limits.
Peg-Co is entitled to a 10% finders fee if dieter lands a contract as a high fashion model after their extreme weight loss.
Peg-o-Leg's Ramblings 
And imagine, people say “down with corporate America”! This just shows that big corporations like Peg-O-Leg industries have been getting a bad rap. Your altruistic approach to the customers you serve is the standard by which all other industries should be judged.
The only problem I see with your suggestion is that football and basketball officials might be targeted by those who can’t afford the safari trip. But hey, that might be a good thing…..
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I know. We mega-multi corporations get such a bad rap – totally undeserved. To paraphrase a line from the musical, Li’l Abner: what’s good for Peg-o-Leg Industries, is good for the USA.
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I think you might have something here! Perhaps this is why obesity was not a problem in the good old days where one worked from dawn to dusk.
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Seriously, that is most of the answer. Obesity is the ultimate first world problem.
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I’m following your cardinal rule: If you didn’t bag it, you can’t eat it.
I put some produce from the grocery store in my own bag. I bagged it … I’m eating it.
Can I find loopholes, or what?
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By that logic, you could put ice cream, cake, candy and pizza in your bag as well. Hmmm…the Peg-Co scientists may have to add a second page to the diet for loopholers like you.
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And you can double the shipping and handling fees, obviously.
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I see you have quite the head for business. Would you like a job in our Marketing Dept?
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I’m sorry, I can’t do this diet. It sounds like too much work…now where are my Little Debbie’s??
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That’s the point! Work = workout. Maybe you could have the Little Debbie Zebra cake hanging on a string in front of you and do a sit up toward it for every bite?
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Just a grapefruit tip – I peel mine, then peel each segment… sounds laborious but you get none of the bitterness of the pith (here’s where someone tells me that’s where all the nutrients are) and minimal eye squirtage, you do get sticky hands though.
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That sounds like even more work – what are you trying to do to me???
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At this point I’m ready to try anything. That zebra recipe looks really tasty. I am booking the immunization appointment for my trip to Africa as we speak.
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I also add a bit of lime juice to my zebra marinade – just a little Julia Child hint for you, there.
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Those packages are intentionally made to be prone to spillage and droppage: if you drop half of the zebra cakes on the floor, it means you’ll go to the store for the next package much sooner.
Either that or your packaging nephews have a grudge against you.
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I suspect both are true.
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Hilarious but if true I would order in spite of the S&H charges.😂👍
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But it’s free! How could anybody possibly object to free???? (except for that little S&H fee.)
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What we don’t have to dig a well.
I really should read all the instructions before starting. (if only they weren’t in all that cellophane packaging…maybe the new toaster has a setting for plastic melt-off?)
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Look on the bright side. You’ve probably burned off thousands of calories with the well digging!
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Walking from the pantry to the couch several times a day will burn off the zebra cakes.
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Only if you happen to live in Buckingham Palace.
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Does your instruction pamphlet include recipes? I have a nice one for elephant stew that serves 3800 people and only takes 3 weeks of cooking over a low fire. I’m sure it could be adapted for any large game like zebra.
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Sounds yummy! But there are only 2 of us at home now, so can the recipe be adapted for, say, hamster?
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Are we to stick with only zebras and apples? Or can I throw in the occasional giraffe and pineapple?
Joking aside though, pictures like that one of the model make me so sad, to think that many young girls actually aspire to look like that!
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I know. That’s an actual runway model – how can we do that to young girls?
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As I read this post, I snacked from a bowl of Doritos. Not kidding. They’re so scrumptious but they do terrible things to your breath. Totally worth it.
I see you tucked that finder’s fee in the small print at the bottom. One could miss it. Clever. Are you an attorney? Perhaps a politician?
Hello, Vanessa. I’m looking up at you.
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It’s always wise to read the fine print, isn’t it?
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Sign me up!
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All we need is the EZ low, low shipping and handling charge and you’ll be on the road to certain weight loss!
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