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Do a little people-watching, next time you're in the grocery line. There's always someone with a cart, bulging with every conceivable kind of diet food. Flats of turkey bacon prop listlessly against the fat free half & half and Olestra cookies. At first glance, this is clearly someone who is completely health conscious, diet minded, and watching what they eat.

But peek beneath the basket to the lower rack – where you normally find dog food, kitty litter, and toxic chemicals – and you will see the full case of Mountain Dew. Diet foods and junk foods, rubbing wrappers in the very same cart might suggest mental illness, delusional optimism, or some other form of brain strain.

However, unbeknownst to the rest of us, these folks are actually brilliant physicists, cleverly disguised as profoundly confused shoppers, so as not to attract any attention. They throw you off their trail with very characteristic behaviors, like chasing a candy bar with a Diet Coke.

Yes, we can now release the fact that these scientists are members of the little know branch of their field known as gastro-physics, and they are actually testing a high-level theory regarding matter and anti-matter. Just as matter can be annihilated by anti-matter, they show how calories can be eliminated, obliterated, and just forgotten about altogether if you just consume them with their Universal opposite.

Oreos and skim milk cancel perfectly.

M&Ms are vaporized into the next astral plane when thrown into a trail mix bag with a few Spanish peanuts.

And then there's diet drinks … the perfect dietary anti-matter for any form of plasticized fruit rollup, gummy worms, or even weight loss candy bars.

Sorry for the dive into the messy scientific details, but there's just a bit more you should know about this physics phenomenon. The calorie cancellation must happen within a certain time frame, if you are serious about blipping away that ingot of taffy you just ate.

It's like your mother explained, logically, that swimming after quick a baloney and cheese sandwich at the beach will make you drop like a rock to the bottom of the ocean, unless you wait the required 30 minutes or so.

In just the same way, modern gastro-physicists indicate that full cancellation can only take effect if the diet product smashes into the junk food within 7.45 minutes. These guys are brilliant.

So the next time you see cleverly disguised gastro-physicists chasing their Snickers with a Diet Coke, don't harrumph. They're not as daft as they seem.

Dr. Will Clower is the award-winning author of The Fat Fallacy and founder of The PATH Curriculum, The PATH Online, and Newsletter.

The PATH: America's weight solution.

Dr. Clower can be reached on his website www.fatfallacy.com.

willclower@fatfallacy.com