Fat Chance by Deborah Blumenthal

Medicine, “The cure for obesity may be worse than the condition.”
    Others go so far as to say that dieting itself is a risk factor for developing an eating disorder.
    How much science do we need to prove that deprivation diets aren’t the path to happiness and fulfillment? When does measured thinking take the place of drastic measures? Instead of zoning out on common sense, and opting for the life of pathetic greens and hard-boiled eggs and fly-by-night regimens that no one can stick with, it’s time to eat well and instead make some long-lasting lifestyle changes if your aim is to shed pounds.
    And if you need some math to convince you that dieting alone is doomed to fail, here goes:
    Every time you diet without exercising, you lose one-quarter pound of muscle for every three-quarters of a pound of fat.
    And while a pound of muscle burns fourteen calories a day, a pound of fat burns just two calories.
    In other words, if you lose twenty pounds, you’ll lose five pounds of muscle, reducing the number of calories you burn each day from muscle by seventy.
    So say you go off your diet and gain all the weight back, what happens? The weight you put back—assuming you’re still not lifting weights—will be all fat, not muscle.
    Bottom line: Overall, your metabolism will have slowed down and you won’t even stay at your previous weight. If you keep eating just the way you did before dieting, you’ll eventually weigh more.
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    Five weeks into my routine, I am down thirty pounds, so what is wrong with the face that is staring back at me in the mirror? Not face. Faces, that’s it. The glaring pool of one-hundred-fifty-watt, soft-white bathroom light was indisputably illuminating not a single, but a double chin. Contouring with makeup, no matter how awe-inspiring the artistry, couldn’t make it disappear. Two palettes of Bobbi Brown’s toasty blusher later, the futility of a brownout hit me hard. So instead of groping for the bible of self-acceptance, I reach for the phone book and the number of a plastic surgeon who has gained a reputation for facial microsuctioning. I put in for a week off—enough time for the bruising to disappear, and buy myself a jar of vitamin K cream and another of arnica that I’ll use to ward off bruising.
    â€œHere’s the game plan,” I tell Tamara, like a sergeant in the marine corps. “I’m out for a week of vacation. I’m tired, overworked, resting at home, doing a little apartment work. I’ll be in and out a lot, hard to reach…and a week later, I’ll be back, looking like the time off served me well.”
    â€œMaggie, this has gone way beyond that small-potatoes diet—”
    â€œWe don’t use the d -word around here, remember?”
    â€œYou’re entering the major leagues now—you’re talking the knife, anesthesia—maybe you should think about—”
    â€œNo, I don’t want to think, it doesn’t burn fat. It’s time to act, and I’m depending on you to run interference for me, keep the newshounds at bay and share in my passion play.”
    â€œYou sure about that?”
    â€œYes, I’m definitely doing it.”
    â€œNo, I mean about thinking burning fat.”
    â€œGod, who knows?”
    Tamara gives me that look.
    â€œYou think I’m nuts, okay, say it.”
    â€œNoooo, you’re just being sucked off into a midlife twister—but go ahead, do the crazy shit, get it out of your system. At least you’re single. Maybe it’ll work out in the end like it did for Flossie.”
    â€œWhat did she do?”
    â€œShe got married and five years later ran off with the window cleaner.”
    â€œAnd what happened then?”
    â€œHe kept her windows so spotless—”
    â€œWhat happened to her? ”
    â€œWell, the love affair didn’t last but two months, and her marriage went bust, but Flossie’s no dope.