Have you noticed how difficult it is to eat while you are laughing? Unlike talking and crying, it is almost impossible to chew and laugh at the same time.  This came to mind when I received an e-mail from a friend who had gone to see this summer’s funny movie, “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan.” She writes:

You know I am always complaining about how hard it is to go to the movies and not munch on nachos and cheese, a tub of popcorn or one of those gigantic boxes of candy. So until I lose my weight and, I hope, my desire to eat these foods, I have been avoiding the big screen. But my husband dragged me to the Zohan movie and promised me that I would not miss munching my way through the story. He was right. I laughed so hard that my stomach hurt afterward. I was so busy laughing that I never thought about munching.  If I could laugh my way through every meal, I would be skinny by next week.”

She is right about laughter taking away the desire to eat.  Her letter made me think back upon countless dinners with friends in which we would sit around the table telling funny stories.  If the stories started before dessert, the food would be forgotten while we would hang on the sometimes interminable stories with the absurd endings.

One of the problems with going on a diet, or trying not to gain back lost weight, is that we often forget to laugh. This may be especially true when people go on diets that decrease their brain comfort chemical, serotonin.  A dear friend e-mailed me yesterday saying that his wife was put on a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet and is now very grumpy. She was a very funny woman, full of sparkle and a way of turning every day events into a vehicle for amusing stories. Now, according to my friend, she rarely laughs and has turned into a glass half-empty sort of person. “Sally has lost her sense of humor along with her weight,” complained my friend. “I told her that a few bowls of pasta might restore her good humor without the weight but she only snapped at me.”  Privately I am afraid he is in for a long humorless summer as her lack of carbohydrate is decreasing her brain’s level of serotonin, and her good mood will continue to suffer.

Perhaps the next generation of weight-loss books, support groups and diet foods by mail order will provide humorous books, comedy DVD’s and stand-up comedians to help the dieter. Wouldn’t it be fun to go to a Weight Watcher’s meeting and spend an hour laughing instead of hearing, once again, what to do with leftovers? Instead of reading lists of calories and vitamins and minerals on a package of diet food, how about reading a funny cartoon instead?  When you feel like a treat because you are bored or disappointed or feeling tired, how about taking out a book like Plato and the Platypus (a book of philosophy and the funniest jokes I have ever read) and indulging in one or two of the funny stories?  

It has been said that laughter is the best medicine. It seems to be the best way to also lose weight.

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