There are 16 days until Spring Break, and you are fat. That leaves you five days for bingeing, two days to "work out" and "eat healthy," and nine days to crash diet so that you can trawl the beaches without being accidentally harpooned by a nearsighted sailor.
Continuing Penn's rich history of invention, we have developed, solicited and collected the most innovative and effective (or affected, as the case may be) diets since Gandhi. What doesn't kill you makes you thinner.
52nd street sprint diet
If the only thing between your bulging waistline and Spring Break Cabo is lack of motivation, try The 52nd Street Sprint. We guarantee those legs will start moving when you're in a part of town where a Specta guard won't even hold your hand.
Start on 40th and Market Street and run west. A recent jaunt provided homeless men buying children alcohol and street-corner domestic altercations - the perfect obstacles to tone those calves. By 43rd Street, Market narrows to a single gravel lane under the El tracks, where sleeping vagrants and broken glass offer natural hurdles, and intermittent police chases will keep you on your toes.
Once you've reached the Long John Silver's at 52nd Street you'll be praying for a neighborhood where the only thing the criminals pack are screwdrivers. Turn around and get the hell out of there; for extra incentive, take the Locust Street route, where the High Rises loom as an oasis of safety. For extra-extra incentive, run at sundown.
- Vince Levy
Commons diet
Since you live twelve inches from 1920 Commons, there is no exercise involved in this diet. But the concentration of laxatives (surprise!) makes up for the lack of physical activity and proves that you literally can shit where you eat. Breakfast: Wake up your bowels with a hearty serving of runny eggs. Lunch: By noon, you've already clogged your toilet three times and found that marble you swallowed when you were five. Ignore the oddly familiar look of your Kosher split pea soup. Dinner: You've begun to smell like SEPTA and you may be breaking out. Add some protein with the country meat loaf, hot stuff. It doesn't matter what country it's from; in a few hours, it will all look the same. Forty-eight hours of this will leave you five pounds lighter and Aramark much richer.
- Eric Obenzinger
Adderall Diet
Eat something hearty for breakfast, like scrambled egg whites on a piece of whole wheat toast, or a clementine. This is your only meal of the day. Take a multivitamin and a 30-mg time release Adderall, a.k.a. magic. Make your way to the library/study situation of your choice via Wawa, where you buy two packs of Parliament Lights, two packs of Trident White (any flavor) and a gallon of spring water. The rest of the day is spent in pursuit of academic excellence (read: adequacy), with cigarette breaks every 13 minutes chased by that Trident, which both appeases your over-active mouth region and combats ciggybreath. You will have no difficulty finishing the gallon of water before leaving your study situation. Wash, rinse, repeat. Guaranteed success.
- Cathi Burns
Weed diet
One lovable result of puffing the ganja is having an insatiable appetite. Unfortunately, the munchies effect directly correlates to weight gain because, after all, who goes to the organic section of Whole Foods when they are high anyway? After having a sesh, make your way to the Mecca of munchies: Wawa. Instead of selecting the Crunch-flavored Dibs, pick the Mint Chocolate Chip. Mint is an herb, like your other herb, and therefore natural and healthy. If Wawa is not your bag, make your way up to Allegdanks on 40th and Spruce. Avoid the unhealthy grease on this visit by making your way to the back and grabbing a nice slice of cheesecake. Balance among the food groups is essential for losing those unwanted pounds during your next blaze.
- Colin Jacobsen
Double-letter diet
The best way to lessen your waistline is to double - letter, that is - your food. By consuming only double-letter foods, flubber can magically disappear. And all food groups are represented. Have an appetite for fruit? Eat an apple. Berries are admissible too. Want veggies? Grab a carrot and add lettuce. Consider yourself a carnivore? Small portions of beef are acceptable - and feel free to indulge in a (buttered) roll. Don't forget to drink gallons of green tea to really shock the metabolism. A warning, however: do not be fooled by breakfast foods like muffins and waffles, and desserts like cookies and cannoli. These double-lettered sweets are the pitfalls of the diet, so beware.
- Kerry Golds
Cupcake diet
If the cupcake diet is a legitimate track to weight loss, then I should have wasted away to nothing but bones and confetti at this point. See, I firmly believe that the tasty perfection confection that is the cupcake is a path to stomach, heart and lifetime bliss. One a day? No good. Don't give me two. I want a Backer's dozen, which puts the baker's to utter shame. After eight cavity fills, a sprinkled complexion and a soft belly over the course of my cupcake diet lifetime, the price I've paid is a hefty one. But isn't it all about your happiness in the end? And happy I am. So with a toothless grin and a voluptuous Venus physique, embrace the cupcake diet open-minded and open-mouthed.
- Jackie Backer
No Color diet
Though we are all equal in the eyes of God, when it comes to dieting, white is right. Of course, there are the obvious staples like white rice, bread, milk and sugar cookies, but for truly committed dieters there is the holy grail: snow. Everyone knows eight glasses of water a day are essential, but sometimes you just want to give your jaw a little workout. Replace your water with snow. Not getting enough energy from your diet? Have your diabetic friend pee on some for you. The glucose in his urine will be perfect for that pre-class kick of energy. However, be careful of imitations! Your preppy friend's "snow," though equally effective, is extremely expensive. Mother Nature's bounty is free.
- Anand Bhagwat
Feigning-vegan diet
Some people diet to feel good about themselves, but those who want to feel righteous while dieting should try the Feigning-Vegan diet. Who doesn't feel holier-than-thou when eating tofu with rice noodles (no egg, thank you) on environmentally friendly reusable plates? But what's nice about the Feigning-Vegan diet is that you can enjoy a sense of social consciousness with the incomparable satisfaction that only medium rare filet mignons can give. No one's looking; no one has to know. By eating vegan, with only a little cooked animal flesh thrown in once a month to gratify that craving, you're bound to shed your flesh, too.
- Kerry Golds
lovesick diet
Some people eat a lot when they get stressed, while other people get too nervous to eat at all (so claims Nicole Ritchie, at least). It is important to make sure you do the latter. And what is the best type of nervous to be? Lovesick nervous. When you're crushing on someone or recovering from heartbreak, you can barely think of your beloved without feeling like you're going to throw up. Seeing them in the flesh raises your pulse to 200 bpm. Food ceases to be important, as it is your heart (and not your stomach) that has control over your functioning. If you're hardcore pining, you can lose about seven pounds in two weeks.
- Chlo‚ Hurley
