I'm still recovering from the stomach bug (virus or otherwise) that hit me last week. I haven't eaten a ton (ok, not totally true: I over ate like a monster on Saturday night), and my energy levels aren't 100%. Still, I weighed myself a few days ago (when the flu was rather more prevalent, along with its unpleasant symptoms - see: visiting the toilet every 10 minutes) and discovered that I had lost a ton of weight! I don't weigh myself frequently, but I'd say I waffle between 175-180 on any given day (certain holidays boost that number of course). But a few days ago I was 165. Even if I had lost a few pounds before the stomach bug hit, that's bloody close to 10 pounds lost in a handful of days. Talk about your uber crash diet. I've weighed myself every day since, assuming the weight would fly back on -- my wife said, "All you lost was water weight." So I'm drinking water, eating a touch more, but I'm still around 166-168 pounds. So now I'm thinking, "Maybe I can stay under 170?" (A personal goal of mine for some time, with little to no effort put towards it, of course.) Then today as I was thinking about the svelte new me, I thought about what a great crash diet the stomach flu really is. Sure it's painful and rather gross (assuming you don't enjoy vomiting and crapping yourself senseless), but you get to spend a couple days off work, you have no interest in food, you can get yourself off any food crutches (coffee, chocolate at night) and you lose weight. I'm sure people have thought about this before... But then I thought -- ya know, it was my kid that gave me this stomach flu -- he's sick quite a bit from daycare and just from being a messy kid that eats his own snot. Could I market that? Could I bottle "kid germs" or maybe setup a booth at the local mall and have the kid sneeze and cough and wipe his boogers on people for a small, nomimal fee? They get sick, they lose weight, and I pocket the dough. Sure, it's exploitation of the little one, but we've setup an RESP and we do house the brat, how much more does he want? And if you don't lose weight while sick, at least you probably get a couple days off. That's more than any other crash diet or fad diet can offer. What else does Atkins offer? What about the insane "grapefruit diet"? Exactly... (Technorati Tags: stomach flu, crash diets)