The Funny Newz: New Tennis Ball Diet Sweeping Nation

MIAMI — representing a radical departure from current medical opinions on nutrition, The Tennis Ball Nutritional Approach® is the latest diet craze to sweep Hollywood. Many predict it will go main stream soon, supplanting popular diets like Fatkins, Zone, Jenny Craig’s, Whale Watchers and Frank’s Fat Farm as the new way of life among trendy health aficionados.

Unlike the food pyramid championed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other diets, the Tennis Ball Nutritional Approach endorses mass consumptions of tennis balls—boiled, broiled, poached, grilled, and even deep fried, but more popularly, juiced. Tennis balls are believed to be low in caloric and carbohydrate value, yet high in essential fiber and other vitamin nutrients, followers of the diet believe.

Dr. Rachel Faddy of the Mayo Clinic, who wrestled with her weight for years, discovered the diet when during a late night eating binge she accidentally ate a tennis ball. The next day she awoke feeling a bit lighter than normal. She stepped on the scale and couldn’t believe it when it showed she had lost 25-pounds.

Before: Jerry Duquesne of McKeesport, Pa., sported quite an enormous beer gut. Often times he would joke that he needed a big tool shed because of his large tool. People would laugh, but privately Jerry despaired. He hated his unsightly waist, but didn’t want to give up his precious beer either.

After: two weeks later on a strict diet of tennis balls, lettuce and a heaping serving of vegetables, Jerry Duquesne no longer has a tool shed. Jerry also quit drinking beer and switched to low-cal and low-carb methamphetamines as an alternative.

Faddy said the Tennis Ball Nutritional Approach not only includes the consumption of tennis balls, but is centered on the sport itself. She described a technique called “lob serving” a meal.

Two fat people sit at opposite ends of the table and must “lob” a chicken leg or other piece of food at the other’s mouth. If the food item misses, then too bad, she said. The person only gets to eat what they can catch in their pie hole, Faddy said. This is a fun way to help reduce meal size and caloric intake. Kids love throwing food at their overweight parents too so the whole family can enjoy “lob serving” a meal while they munch on tennis balls, Faddy said.

Before: Kathy Gensler, Ft. Meyers, Fl., Had struggled for years to lose an unwanted 80-lbs. A friend mockingly said to her, “why you don’t eat tennis balls for lunch and see if that helps keep your hunger down.” Gensler took the woman’s advice.

After: Merely three weeks later on the Tennis Ball Nutritional Approach, Gensler is back to her high school state champion diving form. Everyday, she juices a tennis ball before work. Later in the day, she swallows a whole Tennis ball to hold her over to her next meal. She has lost 85-lbs.

Critics of the diet counter that eating Tennis Balls is no different than eating any inorganic sporting good or object for that matter. Plus, lob serving food is repulsive to many.

“In my opinion, it’s just another gimmick diet. I suppose I could eat my golf shoe if I were very hungry…. then I would probably loose weight,” said FDA researcher and corporate junk food appeaser, Dr. Bernard F. Heinauer. “Plus, ‘lob serving’ food at each other is rather bacchanalian (get a dictionary; we have no idea what that word means).”

Faddy countered that Tennis balls have zero calories, taste better than one might expect, and lob serving food is simply fun to do.

“What other diet can make such a claim?” She said. “Play a couple matches, eat your tennis balls and throw food at each other’s fat faces. It’s the perfect diet,” Faddy said.

“One Serving Fat Ass,” she said, throwing a piece of pie at me during our interview.

(With pie dripping off my nose, I had to admit, if nothing else, the Tennis Ball Nutritional Approach was fun to try).