The Game On! Diet

by Krista Vernoff

  How you play the game is for college ball.

  When you’re playing for money, winning is the only thing that matters.

  —Leo Durocher

  When we were kids, my very athletic sister’s room was FILLED with blue ribbons and my room was filled with “Most kids as slow as you would not even show up so good for you for trying!” placards. The first trophy I ever won in my life was the Writers Guild Award for Grey’s Anatomy. Looking at it, I was overcome with the urge to call my sister and go, “Nah nah nah nah nah!” which makes no sense, because my sister is super supportive and not even a writer. But let’s face it: Bragging rights are the real prize in any victory. When the Celtics won the NBA Finals, my husband did not go around saying, “Did you see the size of that trophy???” He went around saying, “Celtics, baby! CEEEELLTIIIIICS!!!” to all of his friends who are Lakers fans.

  Tonight, I am going to dinner at a very nice Japanese restaurant of my choosing because my team won the last game I played. (Yes, I have been playing the game on and off for many months now. No, it has not bored me yet. Yes, I am still losing weight.) We set the prize as a nice dinner of the winning team’s choosing to be paid for by the losing team. But I, being a giant dork, insisted that dinner should only be the prize if the losers have to write haikus about the glory of the winners and read them at the dinner. Heh. Hee hee heh. I love haikus. That decision, by the way, prompted this e-mail from my dear friend Peter:

  a few words that rhyme with peter

  (just in case you need them for your haiku—which technically shouldn’t rhyme, but still…)

  heater

  greeter

  beat her

  sweeter

  defeater

  liter

  eater

  trick-or-treater

  neater

  seater

  meter

  teeter

  there are many more

  you’ll have plenty to choose from.

  let’s be clear—no using

  peter’s a cheater

  who gained a liter cause he’s

  such a big eater.

  beat you to the punch, suckas!

  xoxo

  p

  Oh. Poor Peter. Poor, poor, losing Peter. All that trash talk and no victory to go with it. (And now I’m trash-talking him in a book! So dirty.) It’s gonna be sooooo fun tonight to hear him sing my praises in 5-7-5 meter. CAN’T WAIT. Did I mention I’m a big dork?

  My point here is, when you choose your prize, it’s fine to make it a material thing (dinner, tickets to a show, etc.) but it’s surprisingly more effective when it’s a thing that can’t be bought.

  * * *

  Playing against your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife?

  Here are a few tantalizing prize suggestions from former players…

  * * *

  Ten minutes of a serious make-out session every night for a month. “Extras” chosen by winner. (Wink, wink.)

  Every Friday night for a month, the losing partner makes a luxurious bubble bath for the winner and for 20 minutes reads his/her favorite novel to them as they soak. If there are accents involved, the loser must do the accents.

  Loser must call winner every day at noon and say at least five things that genuinely acknowledge your love for the winner and what is so great about them.

  You cannot buy your way out of driving carpool for a month.

  You cannot buy your way out of doing laundry for a month.

  You cannot pay your husband to rub your feet every night for a month.

  You cannot pay your friends to write haikus about you. And if you can, your friends are really broke and maybe you should give them some money.

  * * *

  • • • A Tip from Az • • •

  Put a prize up for yourself in addition to the team prize! Make yourself a deal each week: “If I earn at least X amount of points this week, I will buy myself that ____ I’ve been wanting.” It’ll give you extra motivation and a weekly bonus for a game well played!

  * * *

  Again, it’s not about the prize, really. It’s about the spoils of victory and the fun of the game, and, oh, yeah, all the health you’ll gain and weight you’ll lose along the way. But don’t forgo the prize. Because it’s important to have an actual thing you’re competing for. (In sports psychology, it’s widely accepted that a player is motivated best when there are both intrinsic and extrinsic motivating factors. An intrinsic factor is something like a feeling of accomplishment or pride. An extrinsic factor is a prize.)

  So pick a thing.

  It should be a thing you all want to win.

  It should be a thing that will hurt a little to lose.

  Like my dinner tonight. Everyone playing can afford the dinner—but the haikus. The haikus are gonna hurt. ’Cause (a) good haikus are hard to write. And (b) they have to be all about the greatness of me (and my teammate, Adam), which will hurt them to read but please us greatly.

  Haikus. Hilarious. Who makes their friends write haikus?? Me. I do.

  If forced poetry is not your thing, here is a brief list of other prize ideas:

  An actual trophy. You can buy one at a party store. Bragging rights galore.

  Tickets to a show (winner’s choice).

  Dinner where the winners get to dictate the conversation (e.g.: “Absolutely no politics—I don’t care if the debate was last night!”—or “We must discuss So You Think You Can Dance for a full half-hour”).

  Massages (either the spa kind or the at-home-in-front-of-the-TV-with-your-stinky-feet-in-your-spouse’s-lap kind).

  Chores. Office or household or yard work. Any kind of chores.

  Carpool.

  Embarrassing singing telegrams. From the winners to the losers. Paid for by the losers.

  The other, slightly less creative, but always effective, way to go is the buyin. Let’s say you have three teams of two players each and everyone kicks in 50 bucks. Now you have a $300 pot that will go to the winning team. Winners get 150 bucks each. Not too shabby. And you can choose the dollar amount based on what the average player can afford. Maybe it’s a $10 buyin. Maybe it’s $100. Just remember, it should hurt a little (but not a lot).

  Oh, and one final tip: If the prize is money or has monetary value, everyone must buy in at the beginning of the game. That way, no one’s running around at the end trying to collect cash from sore losers. Trust me. We learned this the hard way.

  Frequently Asked Questions

  Q:

  Some of my friends make a lot more money than my other friends. How do we choose a prize that satisfies everyone?

  A:

  It’s really important, especially if the prize involves money in any way, that all players are comfortable with what’s at stake. You don’t ever want financial issues to negatively affect a friendship, so be sensitive to everyone’s financial situation when proposing prizes. Consider something inexpensive, but highly victorious, like an evening of karaoke where the winners choose the losers’ songs.

  Q:

  Can we do first, second, and third prizes?

  A:

  Absolutely, and with a big game going, it’s a really fun way to play and keep everyone motivated (especially if there’s an early front-runner).

  Q:

  Can we skip the prize and just play the game?

  A:

  You can if you want to be stupid and boring your whole life. Hehe. Heh heh heh hee.

  Q:

  Can the prize be a secret that no one knows until the end?

  A:

  Ideally, no. The extrinsic motivation factor works best if everyone’s in on the prize.

  Q:

  Can we change the prize halfway through the game and make it bigger?

  A:

  Hell, yes! Pile it on! (As long as all players agree to the change.)

  Q:

  Can we change the prize halfway through the game and make it smaller?

  A:

  No.
That’s an idea usually proposed by someone who is losing. And that’s what we call sour grapes.

  GET A PEN!

  List a few of your own ideas for prizes. And if you’re feeling really punchy, try writing them as a haiku. It’s surprisingly hard…

  By the way, here was Peter’s haiku from dinner…

  Adam drags Krista

  across the finish line. What

  hollow victory.

  (Hmm. Mean. He got the last word after all…)

  Chapter 6

  THE HONOR SYSTEM

  (Or, No, French Fries REALLY Don’t Count as a Vegetable.)

  One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.

  —Chinua Achebe

  * * *

  The Rule: Keep your own score and do it with absolute integrity. Judge yourself at least as harshly as you would judge your opponent.

  * * *

  When I was five years old, I developed a system for shoplifting. My girlfriend Gina and I would pull a little red wagon around our Venice Beach neighborhood. We would tuck our favorite stuffed animals into the wagon and cover them with a blanket, telling amused passersby that they were taking a nap. Then we would pull said blanket-covered wagon into the corner convenience store and when no one was looking, we’d tuck a bunch of candy under the blanket along with the sleeping stuffed animals, and then take off and binge in the alley behind the store.

  Five years old.

  True story.

  When I was fifteen years old, I was still using a version of this system when I was finally arrested for shoplifting. My girlfriend Jamille and I would skip school and go to the mall. We would bring empty shopping bags and stuff our winter coats into them. Then we would walk into stores like The Gap and The Limited and, in the dressing room, we’d pull the coats out, stuff the bags full of unpurchased clothes, and then leave the store, still carrying full shopping bags, but now wearing our winter coats.

  By the time we got busted—and by busted, I mean, chased through the mall by a small Asian woman yelling “STOP! THIEF!”—we had thousands of dollars of stolen clothes in our closets. This was the end of my shoplifting career. The arrest, the handcuffs, going to court, and having to see a probation officer every week for six months…the whole thing scared me straight.

  But I still have a sneaky mind. I’m a Scorpio, after all. A Scorpio from a fucked up family. In my early twenties, when I decided to quit drinking and teach myself how to become a grown-up, I had to learn how not to lie, cheat, or steal. I figured out with the guidance of some really great mentors that lying, cheating, and stealing were the quickest ways to an untrusting mind and an unhappy life. Changing wasn’t easy. I had to practice being an honest person the way a kid has to practice riding a bike. I was so used to lying—not crazy, pathological lying, but “what lie can I tell to avoid getting in trouble?” lying. I told habitual lies like, “I’m sorry I’m late, the traffic was terrible” when the truth was I just left too late to get there on time. Constant little corruptions that ate away at my soul.

  So I was instructed to try to live an honest life one lie at a time. Every time I would hear a lie come out of my mouth, I would correct it. I would literally say, “I’m sorry, I just totally lied. There wasn’t much traffic; I just left late. Sorry.” If I didn’t catch the lie in the moment, I would call later and amend it. Extreme? Maybe. But I was trying to undo a twenty-year habit of unconscious lying—it required extreme measures.

  And eventually, I succeeded. I very rarely lie anymore and when I do, I literally feel it in my body. It’s like foreign matter in my gut—like a burning, tingling, disturbing feeling that probably has something to do with adrenaline but is terribly uncomfortable for me until I catch the lie and make amends. And I never steal. I won’t even do little things like sneak into a movie theater to catch a second movie without going out to the ticket booth and buying another ticket. Not because I think I’m all superior, but because any kind of lying and stealing leads me down a path of more of the same. Scorpio mind.

  I’m sharing this with you, a total stranger, because it’s important to me that you understand that the integrity aspect of this game is not always easy for me. My sneaky mind can come up with A THOUSAND WAYS to bend the rules. Right now, I’m playing the game and the bad habit I gave up is complacency. I stated to my team that that means I’m doing a minimum of three yogic Sun Salutations every day. Last night, I was on my way to bed when I realized I had forgotten to do my yoga. My brain instantly went like this: Yeah, but you gave up complacency. And you paced in the writer’s room today. You probably clocked a mile. That’s not complacent. So you can skip the yoga and not lose your points. Which is a total and complete cheat. It’s a balls-out lie—but I can make a balls-out lie sound really good if I put my mind to it. I gave myself a little talking-to. It sounded like this: Do the yoga or lose the points. These are your only options, Psycho. I did the yoga. And you know what? I figured out that there’s a reason it’s called Sun Salutation. It’s highly energizing. Not a great thing right before bed. And now I know. It took me forever to fall asleep—but I didn’t lose my points.

  I have young children and would prefer they don’t grow up sounding like truckers, so for my bad habit, I gave up the word “fuck.” It proved very hard. The very first day, within half an hour of waking up, I said “fuck.” Then I thought FUCK, I just said “fuck.” Then I thought, this wasn’t very fair, I just woke up, my brain isn’t even fully awake, I haven’t even had my coffee, how can I be held responsible? When filling out my score for the day, I ultimately didn’t give myself the points for my bad habit. With great resolve I told myself I would do better tomorrow. The next day came and then FUCK flew out of my mouth. Really? How could this happen? As I thought about it, I just realized how present I had to be in every moment of my life. The rest of the week I earned my points.

  —Jana, 40

  Here’s another, far more painful, example. In my one-on-one game with Az, we were neck-and-neck for three weeks—both pulling down perfect scores. And then in week four, I was super tired one day and I was trying not to drink coffee ’cause I was fighting off a cold and coffee tends to make me lose the fight and so I walked over to the commissary and I bought an iced tea/lemonade, and I drank the whole thing before I realized there was sugar and high-fructose corn sweetener in the lemonade. It was basically soda. Which is not a game-sanctioned food. I didn’t even have half lemonade, half iced tea. I had mostly iced tea and probably 40 calories of lemonade.

  EVERYTHING IN ME wanted to ignore it, or justify it somehow. My brain went CRAZY. Could it be my meal off? No, because I already had my meal off. Could it be my hundred calories of anything? No, I already had those today. But it wasn’t really a treat! It wasn’t intentional! It was a mistake! I wasn’t thinking! I can’t be penalized for being TIRED, for God’s sake. I’m a mom. My kid wakes me up all the time. Plus I’m getting sick. I’m soooo tired. Of course I wasn’t thinking clearly. I should not be docked for this. Forget it. I just won’t even mention it. Stupid lemonade. Whatever. And then it tortured me for days. And when it came time to turn in our score sheets to each other, I just couldn’t live with it. It was a freaking snacking penalty.

  Why, you say? Why, when it was an honest mistake, should I lose the game over it?

  Because once my husband unthinkingly popped some blueberries in his mouth and he had to take a snacking penalty for it. And when he asked me why, I said, “Because the game is designed to make us think BEFORE we toss calories into our mouths.” Unconscious eating is a serious culprit in a lot of people’s weight gain. And if you have to take a penalty for “not thinking” enough times, eventually, you will start to think before you eat.

  You know what Az and I had bet? A new iPhone. And you KNOW I’m still pissed. I’m convinced that sometimes he calls me on it for no good reason. Juuuuust to rub it in. Aussie bastard.

  My first point-loss was on day one of my first game. I absently pulled a half-p
iece of carrot from my bag and ate it as I walked to the car, without even noticing until I swallowed it. Now, this was before the 100-calorie rule. A half of a piece of carrot. This was going to cost me my first point in this game? And, right off the bat, I decided not to say anything, to let it slide: That didn’t count. It was absent-mindedness. It’s not like it was a Snickers! It was a carrot! Less than a carrot! The game is not anti-carrot! Do-over!

  And then I realized if I was going to play, then it did count—it had to count—because it’s not the eating of carrots that I’m trying to fight, it’s the absent-mindedness. It’s the habit of noticing when I’m putting food in my mouth that I needed to develop. So I told someone about it right away, to shut up the devil on my shoulder. And, it turns out it was the last time I ever lost points for absent-minded eating.

  —Bill, 40

  This entire game is about integrity. It’s the one key ingredient you cannot play without. When I invited one of my coworkers to play, she said, “Wait—it’s an honor system thing? No way, I know myself, I’ll just cheat.” And I loved her for that. I loved her, ironically, for her honesty. You gotta know yourself. You gotta know if you can keep it honest. Because this game is played with your friends and family and colleagues. And even though it’s a game, when you put money or a prize on the line—not to mention the all-important bragging rights—people take it seriously. Once, my friend Greg had to take a snacking penalty for a Tic Tac. A TIC TAC. The “One-Calorie Breath Mint.” Why? Because someone on an opposing team saw him eat it. And this was before we added the 100-calories-of-whatever rule. And the person on the opposing team sent all the players of that very big game this e-mail: