The Unwritten (Until Now) Rules of Dieting*

"Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie." 

-Jim Davis

Relief: no high fructose corn syrup

1st ingredient: corn syrup (luckily it's NOT the high fructose kind)

1. Anything with any of the following labels are healthy and can be consumed in large quantities with no ill effects (including weight gain): diet, light, lite, organic, fat free, trans-fat free (my personal favorite), no high fructose corn syrup, low sodium, cholesterol free.
2. Frozen yogurt by definition is yogurt (healthy) that has been frozen (equally healthy) and therefore, is absolutely good for you and probably should be eaten daily. You know, it contains all those good-for-you active cultures.
3. When consuming frozen yogurt, (obviously) any topping placed on yogurt is "free" = no calories/sugar/fat/etc. I feel I must add a caution: if buying said yogurt at one of those fancy pay-by-the-ounce yogurt shops, toppings are not FREE, monetarily speaking. So, bring your own bag of Oreos/roll of cookie dough to chunk up on top of your yogurt. 
4. Broken chips, cookies or any other such broken pieces of food (see the next rule for halves) are calorie/fat/sugar free. UNLESS you purposely drop, throw, or otherwise molest (repeatedly) the bag of chips/cookies; in this case, you are clearly intervening in the natural laws of nature and calories/fat/sugar does in fact count, double, I think. 
5. Cake, pie, and any other such food that can be sliced or divided, should be sliced or divided before being served. We all know that 2 halves are less than a whole. And in the case of dessert, 3 halves are equal to a whole. Or maybe it's 4 halves are equal to a whole. 
6. As noted by the Jim Davis quote at the top of this post, vegetables are good for you. So, any dessert that has vegetables/fruit in it has shifted from the dessert (aka evil/completely unhealthy) category to the  vegetable/fruit (aka must eat) category.
7. Pizza is completely healthy. Unless it has sausage or pepperoni on it. Then it has added fat. Turkey sausage/pepperoni is completely ok and recommended. Bacon is better. After all, bacon is Paleo. However, if you have not met your protein requirements for the day, then please do eat the sausage and pepperoni. As a matter of fact, you probably need the meat lovers pizza. 
8. Everything "organic" is good for you and can be consumed in large quantities with no ill effects. I know, this is part of number 1, but I felt I had to elaborate on this one. Go to Whole Foods or any other similar health food store. You will find aisles and aisles of organic food that you probably thought were previously off limits. 
9. Everything labeled "whole grain" should be consumed in large quantities. After all eating whole grains reduces the risk of many chronic diseases (as stated on wholegrainscouncil.org)
10. Cheat days are a must. Following all of these diet rules can become very overwhelming, so don't forget to give your body a break from the strict eating. And sometimes multiple cheat days are required, especially if you have been good for a very long time. And of course, if you are having that visit from "Aunt Flo" then cheat days cannot be avoided, so just embrace a cheat week. Really. How can we women be expected to deal with cramps and foul moods with the aforementioned strict diet?!

See, "Whole Grain" = health food.

1st ingredient: whole grain corn

If you enjoyed this post, you will LOVE the upcoming "Unwritten Rules of Exercise."

*If you are not fluent in sarcasm, you will want to check out this post for real tips on how to eat healthy.