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Quotations about
Dieting & Losing Weight
Welcome to my collection of quotations about reducing diets and losing weight. When I created this page in the '90s, it was popular. Over the years, the topic has become controversial. Hence, I need a disclaimer now: Please note that these quotes aren't meant to push anyone towards an obsession with being skinny — they're simply wittiness and inspiration for obtaining and maintaining a healthy body. The ideal is to practice moderation and to avoid extremes in eating and in life. Some say: be happy with your body however it is, and others: keep slender. But the best path is to make healthful lifestyle choices while not being too concerned with numbers and sizes, to keep an attitude of wellness by being lighthearted and not weighing ourselves down with worry. After all, laughing burns calories!
...the most beautiful words in the English language are "You've lost weight"... ~Christopher Buckley, "House-Guest Hell," in The New Yorker, 1995
I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me that they are wonderful things for other people to go on. ~Jean Kerr
If you really want to be depressed, weigh yourself in grams. ~Jason Love
When friends tell you how awesome you look, drop the "I still have more to go" crap. You worked hard and you deserve the compliment! ~Jillian Michaels, @JillianMichaels, tweet, 2009
No, I shall not waste any of my remaining years on the pursuit of smooth pink cheeks. Nor will I waste my time or worry with weight, counting calories, or other such psychological-gastronomic engagements! ~Emily Newell Blair (1877–1951), "I Prepare to Face Fifty," 1926
Falstaff. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.
Pistol. Two yards, and more.
Falstaff. No quips now, Pistol! Indeed, I am in the waist two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about thrift.
~William Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, c.1600 [I, 3]
Albert Einstein, who discovered that a tiny amount of mass is equal to a huge amount of energy, which explains why, as Einstein himself so eloquently put it in a famous 1939 speech to the Physics Department at Princeton: "You have to exercise for a week to work off the thigh fat from a single Snickers." ~Dave Barry, Dave Barry
Reality check: you can never, ever, use weight loss to solve problems that are not related to your weight. At your goal weight or not, you still have to live with yourself and deal with your problems. You will still have the same husband, the same job, the same kids, and the same life. Losing weight is not a cure for life. ~Phillip C. McGraw, The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom, 2003
The human body is composed
Of head and limbs and torso,
Kept slim by gents
At great expense,
By ladies, even more so...
~Ogden Nash (1902–1971), "Just a Piece of Lettuce and Some Lemon Juice, Thank You"
Often one hears the complaint, "I am growing fleshy; what shall I do to decrease my weight?" That depends.
Many people are naturally plump; fleshiness is constitutional with them, and any effort to lessen the weight may be at the expense of health. If you are thus constituted, please understand that it is not wise to attempt to build a greyhound up to the proportions of a mastiff, or to reduce a Saint Bernard to the figure of a deerhound. One who is fleshy and in good health should let well enough alone.
However, if obesity is due to overeating and lack of exercise, the cure is simple, but not easy. To diminish the pleasures of the table for good eaters is to rob life of half its joys. It is not enough to tell patients to eat less. Treatment for obesity is best conducted in a well-appointed sanitarium. ~G. H. Heald, M.D., "What Shall I Do to Decrease My Weight?," Life and Health, 1906
Scale... you always have to be the loudmouth of the party who tells everyone's secrets. ~Corey Phelps, on Too Large, 2021
The biggest seller is cookbooks and the second is diet books — how not to eat what you've just learned how to cook. ~Andy Rooney, 1982
Every time
You take a beating,
You try to make it up
By eating
~Lila Perl, Hey, Remember Fat Glenda?, 1981 [hashtag emotional eating
When dieting, avoid all sweets,
No matter if they're yummy;
They may melt inside your mouth—
But they firm up on your tummy!
~Robert Orben, 2400 Jokes to Brighten Your Speeches, 1984
Eat sensibly, and remember the saying, "A second on the lips is a lifetime on the hips." ~Saying, c. 1930s [BarryPopik.com. Later: "A moment on the lips, forever on the hips."
Hang a bikini from a shelf in your refrigerator as a reminder of "a moment on the lips, forever on the hips" when you're tempted to snack. ~Glamour's How to Do Anything Better Book, Nancy Young, ed., 1977
If you hang your bikini
On the refrigerator door,
The goodies inside
Will be easier to ignore!
~Lila Perl, Hey, Remember Fat Glenda?, 1981
Do you think there's such a thing as airborne calories? Maybe they just jump directly onto your hips. ~Coupling, "Remember This," original airdate 14 October 2002, written by Steven Moffat, spoken by the character Sally
It is a losing game — buying outfits that you intend to diet into. At some point you have to conclude that the skeleton in your closet is sufficiently dressed. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Saying yes to the skinny jeans by saying no to the donuts. ~Betsy Cañas Garmon, @wildthyme, tweet, 2009, betsygarmon.com
Remember, Glenda,
I have no doubt
There's a thin you inside
That will get out!
~Lila Perl, Hey, Remember Fat Glenda?, 1981
It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it has no ears. ~Plutarch
Some ladies smoke too much and some ladies drink too much and some ladies pray too much,
But all ladies think that they weigh too much.
They may be as slender as a sylph or a dryad,
But just let them get on the scales and they embark on a doleful jeremiad;
No matter how low the figure the needle happens to touch,
They always claim it is at least five pounds too much...
~Ogden Nash (1902–1971), "Curl Up and Diet"
Forget about calories — everything makes thin people thinner, and fat people fatter. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966, ©Thomas Paine McLaughlin
Life itself is the proper binge. ~Julia Child
To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing. ~Mark Twain
There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable. ~Mark Twain
Eating hot fudge sundaes
In your dreams
Means you won't have to let out
Any more seams!
~Lila Perl, Hey, Remember Fat Glenda?, 1981
Avoid any diet that discourages the use of hot fudge. ~Don Kardong
I have dieted continuously for the last two decades and lost a total of 758 pounds. By all calculations, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet. ~Erma Bombeck, "One Size Fits All of What?," I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression, 1973
And govern well thy appetite, lest Sin
Surprise thee, and her black attendant, Death.
~John Milton
To lengthen your life, shorten your meals. ~Proverb
We never repent of having eaten too little. ~Thomas Jefferson, 1825
Thin is happy,
Fat is sappy.
~Lila Perl, Hey, Remember Fat Glenda?, 1981
Although there is much malnutrition in the world, more die in the United States of too much food than of too little. ~John Kenneth Galbraith
My ideal weight is moobless. ~S. A. Sachs
Don't dig your grave with your own knife and fork. ~Proverb
Don't dig your grave with your own teeth. ~Proverb
Hi, my name is Mike, I'm an overeater... And this is usually the point where I would tell you how much weight I've lost, but I'm not gonna do that. Because it's not about how much I weigh — it's about how I feel. And today I feel pretty damn good... That doesn't mean I'm gonna feel great tomorrow... But I'm gonna keep taking it one day at a time because every day it's a battle... and sometimes the pie wins. But the thing is: you gotta keep fighting. ~Mike & Molly, "Pie Fight," 2015, teleplay by Rob DesHotel, Michael Glouberman, and Brian Keith Etheridge
You think we have troubles now? Can you imagine if worry had calories? ~Robert Orben, 2100 Laughs For All Occasions, 1983
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published 1998 Mar 18
revised Oct 2020, Aug 2021
last saved 2024 May 12
www.quotegarden.com/dieting.html