There's a nice article on Slate today about all the wacky fad diets that are popular right now. Besides the Atkins diet, a Festival favorite, there's also South Beach, Hamptons, Okinawa, North Shore, and East St. Louis, presumably the places you'll be able to go with your trim, svelte figure.

But my personal favorite is the "Makers Diet", which combines carb-slashing with radical cultish religious behavior! Not only do you avoid the usual things like pasta and candy bars, but you get to eat homeostatic organisms that looks like dirt, drink raw goats milk, and practice a funny sort of hand-washing called "Clenzology" (which is possibly the sketchiest thing I've read about on the internet since the blatant pyramid scheme FreeIpods).

The one thing that all the successful fad diets have in common is that they promise to make you lose weight quickly and are easy to follow. The quicker and easier to follow the better. If you want to cash in on the craze and write a fad diet book, you should promise 20 pounds in 3 days with no change in diet whatsoever. People don't care if it's feasible or if it works, they just care that it's easy. "Oh yeah, I'm on the Dr. Chris Hill Festival Miracle Plan," they'll say, pointing to my book on the coffee table as they munch on a Snickers bar.