The Football Fan’s Diet

The Football Fan’s Diet is about having fun and improving your lifestyle at the same time. It is also a celebration of American Football.

Far too often, I think Diets go crazy with all the seriousness and point counting and all the other bull shit. In fact, the more I learned about Weight Watchers, the more I thought “you know I can make up something better than that…”

The Football Fan’s Diet follows a full season of the NFL. You basically set progressively harder goals. You start the first week in the Combines, then you go to Pre-Season, The Regular Season, Playoffs and the Super Bowl.

All in all, it is over 28 weeks long. Or not long at all if you can’t post a winning record by the end of the Season. In other words you have to be at least 9 – 7 to make the playoffs.

So how do you win? Just like real football, you have to score more Touch Downs and Field Goals than you give up. How do you score a touch down? That is up to you. First, you have to think about what a touch down is for you health wise? Is it staying under a certain amount of calories? Is it not eating carbs all day? Is it not punting your pet poodle? That is the beauty of the diet – you make it up?

In my case, I will award myself the following badges or give up the following badges for each unforgiving minute:

Eating too much food

Drinking too much beer

Meeting my Daily Game Day Objective


Exercising on any given day

Getting The Big W

The Big Fat L

If you want to follow a popular diet like say, The South Beach, great. Give yourself a Touch Down every day you follow that damn diet. Give your “Inner Fat Slob” a Touch Down if you don’t. At the end of the week see who was more healthy: you or your alter ego, the beer drinking fat slob that makes you so fun to be around. Get it. It’s pretty simple.

Here are some of my more in-depth rules I made up for each part of the season…

Pre-Season

• Consult your physician to see if you are able to perform an exercise regimen.
• Consult a mental health professional about your desire to do The FFD.
• Get ready for 28 Weeks of hell. Dieting is not fun.
• Pick a game day objective that if completed leaves you feeling healthier.
• You daily goal can be anything you want to accomplish on a daily basis.
• Make the game day objective something that is quantifiable such as “If I have less than X amount of calories” I get a touchdown. This is your daily goal.
• You can also be creative with what makes you feel healthy: no carbohydrates, 30 minutes of exercise, walk the dog, run some laps, play dodge ball with my kids, roller skate, etc.
• Make a spreadsheet where you can keep track of your daily scores or write them down on a calendar.
• At the end of each day, if you obtained your game day objective, give yourself a touchdown (7 points) and put this on your calendar or spreadsheet. Conversely, if you fail to make your game day objective, give your opponent (I named mine “inner fat slob”) a touchdown (7 points).
• Optional: If you want to come up with a lesser goal, such as giving yourself a field goal (3 points) on days you exercise, that is fine too. Be sure to come up with a field goal for your inner fat slob too. For example, even if I am under my caloric goal for the day (game day objective) if I drink beer at all, that is a 3 points for my inner fat slob.
• At the end of each week, add up all your touchdowns and FGs (if applicable). Now do the same for your opponent. If you have more points, you win and get the “W”. If your inner fat slob took over and you have fewer points, you are a loser, well you lost. You get an “L” for loser; I mean for loosing that week.
• At the end of 5 games take note of your record because it means nothing. The Pre-Season after all, doesn’t mean a thing in the NFL. Chances are however, if you legitimately failed to win any games, you are doomed in the regular season.

Regular Season

• Make you game day objective a little tougher. If you set X amount of calories to be under as your game day objective, make X a little lower, to be more challenging.
• Get ready for 16 Weeks of Hell.
• Just like above, if you reach your goal, whatever it is, you get 7 points. Conversely, the same applies if you miss it. FGs are optional add-ons.
• Just like above, at the end of each week you add up your scores to see if you won or loss.
• The kicker here is if at any point you can’t secure a winning record, that is go at least 9-7, then your season is over. You are eliminated and are encouraged to start anew. However, a real player might finish out the season any way.
• If you finish the regular season with a winning record, congratulations it is time for the playoffs.
• Optional Cheat Week (or Bye Week). Okay, sometimes you simply can’t put anything together one week. We do give you the option of a Bye Week. That is you get the week off from your goals. You don’t get points at all. No W or L. You simple pick back up the following week.

Post Season

• Get ready for hell on a week to week basis.
• Play games just like the regular season, but each week you make your daily game day objective, a bit tougher. For instance, if you said you want to stay under X calories, make X even less by a certain margin.
• If you lose even one week, season is over.

Super Bowl

• Get ready for 2 weeks of hell (after all you have all the media crap to deal with too).
• Make your daily game objective as tough as possible.
• If you lose, you are done, your season is over. If you win, congratulations you should be in some damn fine shape by now if you really challenged yourself.

Variations

• Get a partner and actually play each other weekly.
• Make sure your daily game day objective is something that you both can reasonably verify either of you did. For instance, run 30 minutes on the treadmill at the gym.
• Whoever at the end of the week gets the most points, wins that week. See who wins the regular season.
• You can possibly form a league of several people at work. Then actually schedule matchups against each other. Have a play off and everything.

Start it over again

Even if you win the Super Bowl, start over and see if you can top your record, point totals, etc. from the season before.

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