Move over Jared from Subway, it's time for a new commercial darling to arise. Legions of pudgy, disgruntled Richard Simmons fans, flock to me - for I have developed… THE CHIPOTLE DIET.
Now, for those of you underprivileged folk that don’t have Chipotle establishments in your area, let me quickly explain the rundown. It’s a "fast food" joint that takes the basic ingredients of Mexican food and puts them into three magical forms: Burrito, Taco, and Burrito Bol (which is all the ingredients sans a burrito or taco wrapping - I don’t understand the appeal of this). Your dedicated Chipotle employees put all this together very quickly, right in front of you – total of maybe two minutes from ordering at one end of the counter to paying at the other end. The burritos themselves are made with very fresh ingredients and weigh over a pound apiece (20 oz is what they shoot for). Holding one in your hand gives you a heady feeling of power, like holding a foil-covered brick that you could throw at something, except you’re going to eat the brick rather than throw it and it will be the tastiest damn brick you’ve ever, EVER eaten.
This is why my co-workers and I have been eating at our neighborhood Chipotle, on average, three times a week for the last three months. It was really only a side effect that I noticed I was gradually losing weight during this time, and the Chipotle Diet was born. I tried to figure out how it worked, and here’s what I’ve come up with:
Premise One of the Chipotle Diet:
While being dense in mass, your 20oz burrito can contain healthy ingredients.
Aye, ‘tis true! While you can put some potentially unhealthy stuff into your burrito, it’s mostly meat and vegetable-based materials. My usual order contains the following: grilled chicken or steak, rice (the basic "filler" in any burrito), medium-grade salsa – which is actually a corn-based concoction but is known as "the medium" Chipotle vernacular – lettuce, and the only real unhealthy downer in my case, cheese. You also have the options of getting black or pinto beans, different salsas (tomatoes for mild-grade, some kind of mean looking sauce for the "hot" level), sour cream, or guacamole. And I can't forget the Carnitas! Free Range Pork! Eat tasty meat and be guilt free, animal lovers, for you are dining upon pigs that were HUMANELY treated before being killed. Oh yeah, then there’s also the mystical "fajita" variant of the burrito, where the beans are replaced by several kinds of peppers. Now out of all that, the only fairly unhealthy things are the sour cream, the guac, and the cheese. I’m not even sure about the cheese… I swear cheese used to be good for you, but it became unfashionable at some point at the turn of the century, kind of like the band "Creed." Oh, wait – Creed was NEVER fashionable.
Premise Two of the Chipotle Diet:
Unless you are somehow metabolically enhanced, you will not need to eat dinner.
Okay, back to that whole "substantial" thing – I’ve got a healthy appetite, but some days having to finish one of those things will make me uncomfortably full. Not nauseated so much as "thrown off my center of gravity." Remember how Little Red and Granny put rocks in the wolf’s belly and sewed him back up at the end of the story, so they could laugh at him as he crawled around? Of course you don’t, because that never happened, and you probably didn’t catch it as a reference to Into the Woods because you’ve been sitting on your couch watching "The OC." Anyhow, my point is if you eat one of these things for lunch, you probably won’t be hungry enough to eat dinner. Perhaps a light snack, but certainly not another full meal.
Premise Three of the Chipotle Diet:
Exercise is almost unavoidable. Remember exercise? Yeah, that "moving around" stuff.
Now, the dirty little secret about the Subway Diet that seems to get glossed over is that former fat guy Jared actually incorporated some gen-u-ine exercise into his daily routine. As do all the other people on those commercials – if you’ll notice, they’re almost always doing something athletic while on screen. Now, the Chipotle Diet helps you out by incorporating that right into the mix. How so? I imagine some of you have in fact been to a Chipotle around lunch, but for the uninitiated, let me tell you – it’s damn busy. Even if your local franchise has a lot, you’re going to be hurting to get a space (no drive-thru, you see). End result – you end up parking further away and walking a bit in the fresh air. In my particular situation, the nearest Chipotle is about four blocks away from work, so we walk it all the time. See? Built in exercise. Standing in queue to make your order? Take some time and jog in place, or perhaps do some light stretching or yoga. If you wanted, you could also work your biceps later by doing reps with your uneaten burrito. Sure, you’re not going to build muscle mass that way, but the Chipotle Diet isn’t about mass, people, it’s about TONE. Although with the money and time you save by not having to eat dinner (please reference Premise Two) you can always join a gym.
So there it is. It works. Deeper research may one day indicate that the Chipotle Diet works best when in moderation, because constant intake of any one thing on a constant basis probably isn't good for you. Mathematically, though, it looks like three to four days a week provides the most effective weight loss vs. the inherent "eating the same thing ad nauseum" factor. See? I've even worked it our for you in this handy formula:
So mix it up! Hell, go to Subway on the off days, I don't care. Just don't go pinning your inevitable weight loss results on THEIR diet over mine. This one's pure gold, I tell you - not like that "Bison Burger" diet I was pushing last year. Oh…. Hmmm… I wonder if I could convince them to make a bison burrito? Didn't there used to be bison in Mexico as well? Sounds feasible… I think I need to go write a few letters.
