Beauty Uncensored: The Stomach Bug Diet

As children, we believe that certain toys will give us the happiness we crave. The talking electronic dog will lessen the sting of the blows from the greasy-haired lunchroom bully. The video game console will help atone for our parents’ separation. The American Girl doll will plug the hole that opened in your soul after Arfy got hit by the UPS truck.
    Eventually, though, we grow up and realize that toys can’t really buy happiness. True joy can only be found in things like diamond necklaces, $150-per-ounce face cream, and 48-hour liquid diets.
    I’m still working on funding those first two things, but a liquid diet has always been within my financial reach. And I’ll admit that the lure of losing five pounds in 24 hours is a strong one.
    The one thing that holds me back is that those 24 hours are pretty much guaranteed to be hell. Still, I had a beauty column to write, and so I resigned last week to buy myself a liquid diet and try my best to live through it.
    And then fate stepped in and paid me a visit.
    The day before I was to take my first sip of miracle brew, I felt a strange rumbling in my stomach. I passed it off to the Mickey Mouse pancakes I had attempted to make my kids that morning and kept playing the Disney Princess fishing game with my daughter.
    Even in the best of circumstances, the Disney Princess fishing game is supremely irritating, but on this day it was absolutely nauseating. After 15 minutes of futilely attempting to catch a gem fish from the rotating “pond,” I wiped the sweat from my brow and put down my fishing rod.
    “Mommy needs to take a break,” I announced weakly. I stood up, and that’s when it hit me.
    I made it to the bathroom just in time.
    After that “episode,” I felt better, at least for 15 minutes. Then I had to run to the bathroom again.
    Once I came back out, I looked at my 5-year-old and 2-year-old, calmly playing together in the den. It was noon, my husband and stepdaughter were out of town, and they wouldn’t be home until after the kids were supposed to be in bed. I could call one of my neighbors and ask them to watch my children, but they all had kids, too, and I didn’t want to pass what I had on to them.
    Instead, I ran to the bathroom once again and spilled my guts. Literally. Then, I staggered out of the bathroom and lay down on the sofa.
    “Punky,” I called to my daughter. “I need you to do me a big favor.”
    “What Mommy?” she asked. “What’s wrong with you?”
    “I’m not feeling well,” I said. “My tummy hurts. I need you to babysit your brother today while I rest here, and if you do, I’ll give you five. Dollars.”
    Punky looked at me blankly.
    “That’s 500 pennies, Punky!” I said. “That’s more money than you’ve ever had in your life!”
    “Oh!” she giggled. “Okay!” Dutifully, she went to her brother and played nicely with him for a while. Then she came to me and solicitously put a hand on my arm.
    “Are you feeling better yet, Mommy?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Well, I’d like some chocolate milk.”
    I stared at her for a long moment. She stared back at me. I sighed.
    “Okay,” I said. I stood up. The room tipped. Carefully, I made my way to the kitchen, poured some chocolate milk and returned to my spot on the sofa. In a few more minutes, I found myself in the bathroom once again.
    “You were wasting water, Mommy!” my daughter said sternly when I came out of the bathroom. I had turned on the sink full-blast so that the kids wouldn’t be frightened by the animal-like sounds I’d been making in there.
    “I’m sorry,” I whispered, and lay back down. How the hell was I going to make it until my husband got home?
     “I need dinner, Mommy,” Punky announced after a few more minutes of playing. Her brother looked over from his Thomas the Tank Engine movie on TV.
    “I hungry too,” he announced.
    The thought of even looking at food made me feel even queasier. But I realized that this was one of those times when I could earn another mothering badge of honor for my non-existent sash. Resolutely, I sat up, staggered to the kitchen and began making their dinners as quickly as I could. Grapes. Bleh. Sun-Dried Tomato Wheat Thins. Blehhhhh. Salami roll-ups. BLEEHHHH---
    I dropped what I was doing and raced for the bathroom.
    When I came back out, I told Punky to just grab some food off the counter where I’d been making dinner and feed it to herself and her brother, while I tried not to die. I also wrote 911 down on an index card and put it on the refrigerator, instructing Punky to call that number if anything weird happened.
    Yes, people. It was that bad.
    “I’m so tired of babysitting, Mommy,” Punky said after she’d eaten an entire bag of deli salami. “Can I have my $5 now?”
    “Mfggh zzzppzle,” I moaned from the sofa.
    “Mommmmmmy,” Punky whined. “I want my $5.”
    “Can’t you see I’m very, very ill?” I asked her, eyes closed. “I’ll give you your $5 tomorrow.”
    “But I want it now!” Punky said stoutly. “Can’t you just look in the direction of the $5 and I’ll get it myself?”
    “I’ll … get … it … tomorrow,” I whispered. Punky sighed deeply.
    “This is the worst day of my entire life,” she whimpered.
    “Mine too,” I said.
    I eventually managed to get the kids in bed and lie back down on the sofa again, where I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was midnight, and the nausea had passed. I went upstairs to bed. I got up the next morning and immediately got on the scale. The verdict:
    I HAD LOST FIVE POUNDS!
    I was ecstatic! The Stomach Bug Diet may be a tough to get through (particularly if you’re watching small children), but in the end it has to be the best diet known to man! It was quick, effective, FREE (not counting the $5 dollars spent on child care), and I got a colon cleanse in the process! Also, I managed to pass it on to my husband, so we got a two-for-one deal!
    Today, Hubs and I are svelte, toned versions of our formerly puffy selves, thanks to the Stomach Bug Diet.
    Find it at an Urgent Care Center near you!