I spent a cranky day yesterday, my first on the South Beach diet. The South Beach diet, in case you were wondering, is an insidious program that forbids the consumption of my two favorite foods in the universe: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and orange juice. In two weeks, I can have chocolate soy milk again, but it just isn’t the same.

On the South Beach diet, I can eat as much low-fat string cheese as my little heart desires, but my normal breakfast of low-fat vanilla yogurt is strictly verboten. (Naturally, my little heart had to test the waters by eating an entire package of string cheese; my big stomach does not look any less big for it. I also ate ten stalks of celery, just because.) So instead of low-fat vanilla yogurt, I had bacon and eggs for breakfast. Excuse me, turkey bacon. The eggs were good, but turkey “bacon” is a crime against both humanity and turkeys.

I do not know how I am going to survive two weeks of this, but I must warn you against looking for any low-fat string cheese in your local market. It will be sold out for the duration.