There are certain things that are far, far easier to do when you have a partner, buddy, spouse, sibling, etc., to share the experience.

Things like changing bad habits. Take smoking for example. Two smokers who decide to quit can give each other lots of support and encouragement to stay the course.

Diets can work that way, too. Most of the time, diets can work that way. Unless, of course, they are what I have come to call "dueling diets."

My two sons live with me. Matt is a senior at Ohio University and Zach is a soon-to-be freshman at Ohio State -- a Bobcat and a Buckeye.

I tell you this only to set the stage for the "dueling diets" going on in my home.

Matt, home for the summer, is in that stage that Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, in his book "How to Get What You Really, Really, Really, Really Want," calls the "warrior" stage.

My diet, as you know (if you’ve followed this saga), is high protein, low carbohydrate, lots of meats and cheeses, etc., and no sugar. There is every concern for the number of carbohydrate grams and little regard for caloric intake.

Zach’s diet is everything on both diets plus everything not on both diets. There is no regard for caloric intake or carbohydrate grams. But even Zach has started to view the empty calories in sugar as being unnecessary. For the first time in his 18 years, he has decided that diet soft drinks are preferable to "regular pop."

Guess who’s the thinnest among the three of us.

"How many calories in that?" Matt asks, eyebrows raised like a schoolteacher’s.

"Forget the calories," I repeat my oft-stated comeback, "Look at ... "

" ... how many carb grams!" both sons sing in mocking harmony, finishing my sentence.

Then there is the dueling exercise routine. I walk, play some tennis, fairly low-impact stuff. Matt runs timed miles, does power push-ups, millions of sit-ups. Zach plays Nintendo.

Guess who’s the thinnest.

Oh, Zach also unloads about 4 tons of pet food and supplies at the store where he works for the summer. OK, maybe that can count as exercise.

On Father’s Day, all three of us walked the entire 18 holes of golf in the annual Fisher Invitational Golf Classic. We estimated that the course covered about six miles from tees to holes. But ... we seldom hit the ball all that straight. Consequently, we estimated that we walked about 12 miles. And to make matters all the worse, you should know that the thin guy won.