Toddler Chow - The Miracle Diet

I recently read this amazingly accurate article entitled The Toddler Diet, having followed the link from an equally awesome Mommy blog on What To Expect, called My Little Monkeys (Whew! That's a lot of citation). 


I too, like these Mums, have tried many excruciatingly horrible diets along with the occasional better-tasting ones that are just as ineffective. I've tried a vegetable soup diet, that results in you spending the better part of your day and night in the toilet flushing liquids out of your system like a tap. That obviously didn't work out too well for me-with-the-over-active-bladder. It also left me smelling like an onion (yes, an onion) because when you're consuming so much vegetable soup and little else, you tend to pee, poo and sweat onions. Yuck, that got too grossly graphic too quickly. I've also tried a grilled food, protein diet, where you end up spending ridiculous amounts of money and effort into purchasing eggs (SO many eggs), discarding most of their yolks along with filling up your freezer with what would otherwise be a year's supply of chicken breasts. 


And then I took a moment to step back and admire my toddler's effortlessly lean frame. At 21 months, he eats the strangest, most fattening things, yet somehow manages to stay slim with oodles of energy to spare, resulting in him never wanting or needing to sleep on time! It's actually quite miraculous. Read on to see if you can shed some pounds the Zy-way...

Day 1

Breakfast: 

Milk and one fried egg, one piece of toast with butter - Eat the whole egg, whist rejecting the toast halfway through and asking instead for some raisins. Take 2 raisins and balance them carefully on a bottle of honey requested from the dinner table as a substitute toy. Take 2 more raisins and insert them carefully into catcher-bib, then remove bib and empty it's day old contents + new raisins onto the floor from the side of the high chair. 

Snack: 

A handful of cheerios. Carefully 'fork' and consume the cheerios using a blunt colour pencil from the sofa where Mummy hid it behind other things.

Lunch:

A whole bottle of baby juice and steamed vegetables. Sift through the vegetables. Be careful to eat only the corn and broccoli, smushing the green beans and carrots and using a spoon to catapult them onto the floor whilst aiming for Mum. Gulp a few sips of juice in feigned thirst to deflect unwanted-vegetable offerings.

Snack:

Two stale bread sticks from under the sofa and two beads from scarf. Stash any remains back under the sofa for emergency hunger pangs at a later date. 

Dinner:

Anything Mum and Dad are eating, with any juice they are drinking. Take two bites and then decide you don't like it so Mum can make you something new. Spit everything out - let Mum feed it back to you - repeat. 

Day 2

Breakfast:

Milk and stale, leftover toast from yesterday and 2 boiled eggs. Insist on trying the toast, then act disgusted and throw on floor. Eat egg with fingers whilst smushing it on your bib and leave exactly half for tomorrow.

Snack:

A bite of mum's one and only lipstick, washed down with a sip of Dad's aftershave. Throw up if the taste is not as agreeable as you expected it to be.

Lunch:

Stale bread stick remains from under the sofa. Two bites of crayons (any colour) and a colour pencil nib.

Snack 2:

Half an apple. Chew until there is nothing but pulp left, then smear pulp on living room rug and sofas. Repeat with all slices and attempt to hide the evidence with shreds of tissue paper.

Dinner:

Mixed vegetable rice. Attempt to stab rice with fork and throw a tantrum when it doesn't. Refuse to drink water and wake up in the middle of the night thirsty.

Day 3

Breakfast: 

Milk and two pancakes. Request syrup, then ask for the pancakes to be replaced with plain ones. Pour a little syrup onto high chair tray and rub into your hair with hands. When full, tear pancakes into little pieces and stuff into cup holder. 

Snack:

Baby gingerbread men. Put some in a bowl and chomp heads off only. Then throw the rest of the packet into the trash. Take a few tastes of deodorant and wash down with water.

Lunch:

Two bites of any sandwich. Reject the rest and eat cheerios instead. Retrieve rejected sandwich and try again. Reject and repeat until snack time.

Snack:

Retrieve half-pack of gingerbread men from trash and eat legs only. If any have fallen out of the packet and landed on other trash, retrieve and eat those too. 

Dinner:

Four fish fingers and a handful of chips with juice. Give juice priority whilst pretending to eat fish and spitting it into catcher bib when no one is watching. Demand more chips when they are finished and throw a tantrum. Eat more cheerios. These are small enough to fit in your ears if you try very hard.

Repeat this 3-day diet until desired results are achieved - or until you find yourself in the A&E wishing you had passed on the lipstick and/or aftershave and/or deodorant!