La dieta del cucurucho translates as ‘the ice cream cone diet’ in English.

It’s the way Spaniards often talk about going on a diet, but mainly in a joking manner. 

That’s because of what follows la dieta del cucurucho in the rhyme – comer poco y follar mucho – eat little and have lots of sex. 

So when a Spaniard says they want to go on a diet (ponerse a dieta) to lose weight (perder peso or adelgazar), the other person will often suggest la dieta del cucurucho. 

They won’t necessarily go as far as mentioning the second more lude part of the rhyme, so la dieta del cucurucho acts as an innuendo.

It’s an ongoing joke in Spain with people suggesting other ‘diets’ that they then rhyme with something a bit under the belt. Some examples are:

Dieta del melón: siempre el mismo cabrón (The melon diet: always the same bastard)

Dieta de la lagartija: primero con la madre y después con la hija (The lizard diet: first with the mum and then with the daughter)

Dieta de la pasta: follar y follar hasta decir basta (The pasta diet: f*ck and f*ck until you say stop)

Believe or not, if you Google dieta del cucurucho you will find a wide array of articles which actually sing the praises of this infallible method of losing weight. 

In any case, you can expect to hear la dieta del cucurucho mentioned a lot this summer, so it’s a great expression to know if you want to share some banter with your Spanish friends (perhaps not with your Spanish mother-in-law).

Example:

– Tía, me tengo que poner a dieta. ¡Es la hora de la operación bikini!

– Pues ya sabes que recomiendan. ¡La dieta del cucurucho!

– Mate, I need to go on a diet. ¡It’s operation bikini time!

– Well, you know what they recommend. ¡The ice cream cone diet!