Quiz: What is the
difference between a dietician and nutritionist?
Answer: $45 and hour.
I know because my doctor sent me to see both.
Although I am a spitting image of Tom Selleck, I am often
confused for both of his twins. In an
effort to lose one of me, I was sent to see a dietician,
Dieticians are people who look down on anyone wearing a belt
more than 17” long. They usually parade
about in spandex clothing to show off their firm bodies to us who are more on
the flabby side of skinny.
One of the topics of conversation is the amount of exercise
the patient is getting; that would be me.
The definitive response is, ‘how far away is the refrigerator?’
They feign pity for you when you tell them you do more than
they think but, their days consist of exercising for 9-hours, then having a
Saltine cracker for dinner.
“More exercise!” was the bottom line. “You need to get more exercise.”
“But I do exercise,” was my retort. “And I eat ‘lite’ food.”
“More exercise, less lite food,” was the best I could get
out of this woman.
My next stop was a nutritionist. Nutritionists are people who tell you what to
eat to lose that weight in order to accomplish that goal set by the dietician.
Is would seen the nutritionist was the funnier of the two as
this was a classroom situation consisting of roughly twenty non-slim brethren
and their spouses. The spouses are
expected to learn how to prepare the food and help the victim – er – patient to
eat more healthily.
Rubber eggs, plastic steaks, and wooden carrots were used a
props being passed around to torment all twenty participants who – according to
our growling stomachs – clearly starving.
Empty boxes of bread sticks, lasagna, and cookies helped us
learn to read the nutritional labels thereon.
Then the comment and question segment began.
“How am I expected to survive on 1300 calories per day?”
asked the only guy in the room who could hide behind a piece of rope.
With the benefit of more imitation foods, the nutritionist
held up a chunk of meat, peas, lettuce, carrots, and pasta, and asked the
question: “Would this fill you up?”
The now-shamed neutered man sat back down, or fell down into
his seat from weakness, with downturned eyes.
A large fellow and his wife, who both appeared to have
arrived seconds ago from the 1960’s, offered that that would be too much grub
for them to eat – and they even share their meals.
A personal
observation: those two never missed a meal and their meals likely consisted of
a side of beef and a 25 pound bag of potatoes.
Nonetheless, my sainted wife and I diligently followed the
orders for the next month-and-a-half.
After six-weeks of strict dieting and exercise, I gained 14 pounds.
Thanks for the berating!
