The Fat Diaries: The 'Royal' Diet Hits America

Have you got your commemorative plate? Your William & Kate mug? Is your gigantic refrigerator bearing the likenesses of the soon-to-be-married royal couple? No? Well then you’re probably like most Americans when it comes to the impending nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton. As much of an Anglophile as I’ve been accused of being, I can only muster a polite, “oh! That’s nice.” I was 3 months old when Charles tied the knot with Diana, so this frenzy is all new to me. In America, marriages among the first circle are cloistered affairs where the public are forcibly shut out save for the “official released” photographs and the few paparazzi snaps. In fact, most American celebrity weddings maintain plausible deniability within the first few months, just in case they don’t pan out. In the United Kingdom, however, the wedding is a matter of cultural pride (or embarrassment, depending on whom you ask). Not since Bella & Edward has the world taken this much notice of a wedding. It’s a polarizing subject, and one which is generating millions of pounds in merchandise, fashion and even the dieting world. Wait —what?

That’s right, diets. Prince William’s future mum-in-law (according to the Telegraph) has been trying to get in shape for the big day, adopting a French diet plan that is taking Europe by storm. The rumor states that Carole Middleton has been using an Atkins-like plan called the “Dukan Plan.” You can read about it here. There’s a helpful video explaining the diet, even if the reporter seems to think that donning a beret and a French accent in a French restaurant is funny. Already the diet has been gaining in popularity and its new alleged connection to the royal wedding is generating HUGE buzz. Fortunately it’s just in time for a book on the Dukan Plan due in the U.S. next month (coincidence or guerilla marketing?). The Royal Family has denied Mrs. Middleton’s adoption of the Dukan Plan.

Aside from the whole Atkins “déjà vu” problem I’m getting with the Dukan Plan, I’m troubled by the alarming number of responses from dieticians who think the plan is dangerous. I had to agree when I saw that a man who followed the diet had a refrigerator full of processed sodium-pumped meat cuts. And of course, I’m dubious of one any “eat whatever you like and on x days eat a Spartan meal,” plans. I’ve done three or four of those go-crazy plans where I was told I could eat whatever and hang the cost, provided I fasted or ate the staple food the next day. The worst one I did was with a vegetable diet where on the “back to basics” day I could only eat roasted zucchini. It didn’t make me feel healthy, it made me feel sick, and I certainly didn’t lose any weight on the plan, because I was making up for that nagging empty feeling on my go-nuts days. I can’t even imagine mastering my gag reflex mechanism to stomach a meat-only day. BUH-ARF.

To me this fad, so-called celebrity diet (“celebrity” being in a 3-degrees-from-Kevin-Bacon sense), is just nonsense, and dangerous nonsense at that. This is just another product to slap a price sticker on with the big legend, “Will & Kate In Love Forever 2011.” So you can eat your oat bran out of a Will & Kate Spoon, take your meat cutlets out of the freezer door in Will’s forehead, and then have a heart attack on your Will & Kate sofa. No wonder Hollywood actors get married in secret.

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