click here join our mailing list		DAL BHAT DIET by Ryan The last two weeks have been some of the hardest and best of my life. I have been volunteering in Nepal with my friend Erin’s organization, Edge of Seven ©. We arrived in the capital city, Kathmandu, and had a two day orientation to learn some basic Nepali customs, phrases, and see some of the sites of this bustling city. On the third day, we started our commute to the mountains. We were embarking on a two week excursion to a small village, known as Jarang, to help build a much needed school for the children of the village. The trip from Kathmandu included a 5½ hour drive on a paved road up and down the sides of mountains until we arrived in the small city of Gorkha. We ate lunch there and started our three hour trek on a dirt/mud road to the village. We were driving in a Land Rover up the side of a mountain with no pavement. It felt like we were in a car with square wheels, not to mention the cliffs on our right hand side the entire way. We got out about three miles from the village but the roads were so bad that we walked the last 2 hours of the journey. We arrived 12 hours after we left Kathmandu and were greeted in an amazing ceremony by all of the villagers. There were flower necklaces, Tikka blessings , singing, and dancing. It was truly breathtaking. The Nepali people who live out in the “country” live by the most basic means you can imagine. The only thing I can compare it to is how the Pilgrims lived in America when they first settled in Plymouth. The houses are made of stone and mud with tin roofs and a porch. There is no furniture except hard wooden beds on the 2nd level. There are no screens or windows and the door gets shut at night to keep the tigers out. Each house has a buffalo, goats, chickens, and pigeons. Some have cats, dogs, and roosters. Each family owns a piece of land on the mountain where they plant rice and corn. The average day in the life of a villager consists of walking up at dawn (4a) and feeding the animals with grass and tree leaves cut down the day before. An hour or so later, they go to their crops and farm for the whole day. Everything they farm is eaten or traded with other villagers. Occasionally, they will give some of the corn or rice that they harvest to a villager who is going into town for sale. They head to bed around 8:30p and repeat the next day. A few of them also grow potatoes. They don’t have electricity, they don’t pay taxes, and rarely are they in contact with anyone from outside of the village or surrounding villages. There is no such thing as retirement. They work until they die and they love every minute of it. They work to live and don’t waste anything they harvest. On a special occasion, they will have the opportunity to eat meat, but it’s rare and expensive unless they kill one of their own chickens. They use the buffalo and goats for milk. Since they live off of what they can grow or produce from their animals, their daily meal selection is somewhat limited. Breakfast consists of tea in the morning, Dahl Baht for lunch, and Dahl Baht for dinner. Dahl Baht is Lentil Soup (Dahl) and Rice (Baht). Most of the time, there is a potato curry in it that is so hot I came close to passing out each time I ate it. During and after each meal I would be sweating under my eyes and on my forehead, my nose would be running, my face was red, and my eyes were tearing up. Just for the record, I never actually cried from Dahl Baht. Nepali Spiders are a different story all together though. I may have cried, peed my pants, and passed out from them. After working hard, hiking up and down a mountain, then eating DB, you can imagine that these people are in incredible shape. Each day we worked long hours, digging the foundation for this school in an impenetrable rock soil at the top of the mountain. You can imagine the physical impact it made on us as well. At the actual project site one late afternoon it came to me on a whim. If I marketed this back home I would make my first million. Step aside Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and all other low carb diets because here comes the DAHL BAHT DIET©. Not only am I the Dahl Baht Diet© founder, but I’m also a client. I started the trip off at 170 LBs and ended it pushing 100. Dahl Baht Diet© Schedule: 7 AM Breakfast: Tea with Sugar 10:30 AM Lunch: Dahl Baht with Water 8:30 PM Dinner: Dahl Baht with Water and one Malaria Pill Duration: Stage 1: 2 weeks Stage 2: 4 weeks Stage 3: 2 months Rules: No snacks or supplemental food are allowed and you can drink as much water as you want during the day. The water can be with or without iodine tablets for purification. You will be allowed to add powdered Tang (only orange or purple) to your water twice a week. You must eat with your right hand for every meal and you can NOT ever eat with your left hand. You will get a bucket shower every two days outside with soap but no Shampoo. Penalties: If you cheat, here are the mandatory punishments (which will all be done at high altitudes and in 90 degree weather): 1st time: Dig 6’6’6’ whole in ground then fill with water. 2nd time: Haul two 30 liter jugs on your back attached by rope to your fore head up the side of a mountain. 3rd time: Knock down an old school built from stones and mud with a pick axe and shovel. 4th time: Haul rocks from knocked down school 50 feet away to the hole you dug for 4 hours with no breaks and no shoes. 5th time: Walk 2 hours to and from work each day and make triangles out of an iron bar. 6th time: Harvest Corn and Rice for 8 hours. 7th time: No water for a day and 100 lb cement bags up hill. 8th time: You are kicked out of the program with no refund. Guarantees: * Stage 1: Lose 10 lbs (only poop twice a week) Stage 2: Lose 20 lbs (only poop twice a week) Stage 3: Lose 30 lbs (only poop once a week) Stage 4: You are officially as skinny as a Nepali. Your body is so efficient in using its food, you may never have to poop again. Congratulations!!! *Please note if diarrhea occurs you can double the weight loss in each stage, but you can throw the poop guarantees out the window. Side effects: Canker sores, sun burn, heat exhaustion, nausea, mosquito bites, loss of life from Tiger, sprained ankles, cuts, broken fingers, canker sores, bee stings, back aches, food hallucinations, diarrhea, lack of poop, lots of peeing on long drives, canker sores, temptation to cheat, vivid dreams, arachnophobia, chills, rabies, malaria, tetanus, death by millipede bite and canker sores.