About two-thirds of them go toward running your machine. In other words, fueling your heart, liver, lungs, etc., and regulating body temperature. Another ten percent or so are used to digest your food and utilize it. The rest go toward moving your ever-loving body around—or not moving it, as the case may be.
And, of course, we all vary tremendously in the amount of calories that we need. Two women may be the same height and weight, and age, but differ significantly, studies show, in the number of calories that they need just to keep basic body functions humming. After that, it’s often a case of playing policeman with yourself. Buy a food scale and monitor the size of the portions that you eat. Every bite of food counts—even the free samples that you pick up in the supermarket, or the bites of leftover food that your kids leave. Have you been exercising? You may have built up more muscle, and even though the scale doesn’t show less weight yet, you may have lost fat. Exercise more and then sit back (mentally) because the weight will continue to come off. In fact, at this point, shift your energies more toward exercise. Remember, weight loss slows down the more that you lose. It’s the way the body protects itself against starvation.
seven
Yes, I felt guilty about ignoring Wharton. But how could I handle lunch with him in a four-star restaurant and order salad? If I didn’t eat whole-hog, he’d be suspicious. After the second call, there was no place to hide. I decided I’d resort to the clichéd illness fable. Some sort of mysterious and lingering GI bug, just had to wait it out…these things didn’t just go away overnight. I’d go without makeup so I looked washed-out, and order consommé, broiled fish, fruit. Ugh.
In the meantime, I’d hide the lost weight with camouflage gear.
“I need something to make me look fatter,” I tell Tamara.
“That’s a switch. Who you tryin’ to impress, a sumo wrestler?”
“Close, lunch with Wharton. You think the Zoo has an online boutique?”
“Zebra stripe couture?”
“Oh, maybe elephant pants. Anyway,” I yawn, “they couldn’t look worse than this.” From a mammoth shopping bag, I pull out a flouncy pink dress with puffy sleeves and crinolines under it. I pull it on over my dress.
Tamara’s eyes widen in horror. “You trying out for Shakespeare in the Park? Give it up.”
“I plan to. At the end of this charade it goes priority to Stratford on Avon—at least I’ll get a tax deduction. But you have to admit, I don’t look thin.”
Weird clothes, plates of greens, my digestive system is in an uproar, my head is turned around, it was time to see my shrink.
I sit on her overstuffed down couch in her apartment on Central Park West and stare out of the leaded-glass windows at the tall trees. It’s a co-op, in the kind of building that celebrities live in with mahogany-paneled dining rooms that can seat sixteen comfortably for Thanksgiving. Don’t know who painted her walls, but they’re lacquered to glossy perfection, free of cracks and goose bumps. I understand completely how she affords it—at one hundred and fifty bucks an hour, she should put up a brass plaque outside the office with my name on it, since I pay so much of the maintenance each month.
I sit in the corner of the couch, near the Kleenex box and the small gold Tiffany clock that she sees without looking at. I mean she must. We always finish on time, ten to the hour.
There’s a pen-and-ink sketch of an oak tree opposite the couch, and one branch holds a flock of sparrows. All of the sparrows have their heads turned in the same direction, except for one. Guess who identifies with the oddball?
“One phone call, and I was the high priestess of the overweight, but enter Mike Taylor, and I came unglued.”
“We all have uncertainties about who we are depending on—”
“Uncertainties? I’m a knock-kneed teenager waiting for the latest issue of True Romance to hit the newsstands. You know the word crush?”
She sits back in her moss-green velvet wing chair and smiles benignly. “Aren’t you being a little hard on yourself, Maggie?”
I smile tightly. “It gets to be a habit.” I turn and stare out the window. It always feels so safe here. All feelings are allowed. Tolerated. In fact, if things are going better than average, I almost feel I’m disappointing her. As if we need to do crisis management, otherwise what’s the point? She doesn’t take notes, and I can’t decide if I like that or not. Does she have an extraordinary memory? Or do I just repeat the same stories and themes so often that there’s no need for her to write the same things down, over and over. Or is it simply that she feels as though taking notes would inhibit me, as if she were a detective recording every detail for the record? This way, at least, no one can subpoena her notes.
“Okay, let’s put another spin on this. A celebrity’s call for help prompts a savvy journalist to offer her body in the interest of science. Can maximum motivation edge out body chemistry?” I rather like that.
“Maggie, maybe you’ve made a habit of putting your own spin on things, instead of dealing with what you really feel…”
“What I really feel? It’s been so long since I’ve given vent to— I mean, I’m perpetually thwarted, dammit…” I reach for the Kleenex. I wonder how many boxes she goes through in a year. Do other women get as weepy as I do? I doubt it. I’m the type who cries at funerals even if I didn’t know the deceased. I feel for the family. I know how I’d feel if it were my mother. Everyone else, however, always seems so self-possessed. What is that?
She sits forward in her chair. I know by now what that means. “I’m afraid we’re out of time,” she says. “Let’s start with that next time.” I go to the bathroom, and then pass the next patient who’s waiting in the living room as I go out. As usual, I’m tempted to look at her, and ask her what her issues are. But I avert my eyes, and head out to the elevator, then step back and turn toward the staircase.
Wharton booked a table at Le Cirque 2000, the venerated four-star celebrity haunt, now gaily redone in harlequin-like decor.
“Bill, I wasn’t ignoring you. I would never do that. I…I was out with some viral bug or something for a few days. I’m trying to slowly get back to myself. I mean, you lose muscle mass when you just lie there and vegetate.” I hold my arms along my sides as though I’m an eight-year-old doing show-and-tell in class. He’s not an idiot, why am I showing him what a prone position looks like?
“Mmmm,” he says, with a bewildered expression on his face.
“I mean, it’s like being weightless, like you’re in outer space.” I blabber on, filling the void. “You need to walk, move, do weight-bearing exercises or you just turn to mush. So I bought a couple of videos, and I’m trying to get my strength back.”
He seems to be considering that. Actually, it’s hard to know what is behind the pained expression etched into his soft, punching-bag-shaped face. Those horizontal ridges etched into his forehead, the hangdog look. The man appears as though he’s never had a truly relaxing day in his life.
“Well, I’m starting with the escargots,” he belches out, as if to release the discomfort he is bottling up listening to me. “And then I’ll segue into the ris de veau with the sauteed wild mushrooms. How about you, Maggie? Betcha can’t top that.”
I smile weakly. My eyes seize on the succulent lobster with coral risotto, the seared duck breast with its curry braised leg and desserts like crème brûlée and chocolate fondant.
“I’m really on culinary R&R right now. Just some consommé and then monkfish and fiddlehead ferns.” I’m at a four-star restaurant, and I’m ordering like I’m in the ICU.
Wharton stares at me in disbelief. “Maggie, is there something that you want to tell me? You’re not going through some conversion, some born-again fitness philosophy or altered state of consciousness, are you?”
I consider ordering fresh-squeezed celery juice to really freak him out, but no, it might be too jarring.
“Bill,” I coo, elbowing him. “You know me better than that.”
Wharton looks back at me
for a moment without saying anything. He’s about to break apart a second roll when he stops and turns to me.
“You’re not unhappy at the paper, are you? I’ve tried to give you all the perks that I could to make you happy. Is there something you need? More file drawers? New office furniture? Even more vacation time?”
Now that I’ve lost weight, I consider asking for a wardrobe allowance, but then think better of it. “I’m perfectly happy, Bill, I swear. Relax.”
Some of the tension melts out of him.
“Good,” he says, patting my hand like the parish priest. “Good. Well, here come the appetizers.”
I sit and glumly sip from the shallow bowl of pale yellow broth flecked with scallions, mesmerized by the sight of Wharton energetically downing his escargots and then soaking up their fragrant garlic-infused broth with thick heels of crusty French bread.
He passes his plate under my nose. “At least have a taste.”
I smile brightly and shake my head, then glance down and catch the reflection of my shining green eyes in the shimmering silver of the oversize soup spoon. I might be starving to death, but I was proving to myself that I had willpower worthy of a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records. And now, for a change, my head is in charge, not my gut. Suddenly, my mood brightens. Three weeks down, five more to go. It was a piece of cake!
You’re Not To Blame
Do you blame yourself for the way you overeat? Well, now new research comes to the rescue, offering some solid science to show that how you eat has to do with more than just willpower.
For years, researchers have suspected that the business of understanding eating disorders was far from simple. They just didn’t have all the facts—the whole scientific picture. Well, they still don’t, but some newly published research now shows that one form of a gene that’s part of controlling your appetite occurs more often among anorexics.
What does that tell us?
That maybe eating disorders can be blamed in part on some malfunction in the way the brain normally controls food intake. The study—done by researchers from Germany and the Netherlands—revealed that 11 percent of anorexics had a variant form of the gene for agouti-related protein, a chemical in the body that stimulates appetite. Among people without anorexia, only 4.5 percent had this form of the gene.
While the causes of anorexia as well as other eating disorders may involve more than just one gene, and have to do with one’s environment as well, the study gives ammunition to our argument that “it’s not our fault.”
After three weeks into my new routine, I decide pampering is in order. I wriggle my toes. Time to book a pedicure at Arden and then head over to the shrine. I deserve a gift. I had to reward myself. No one else would. Who was it who said we’re becoming the men we want to marry?
I lean against the edge of Tamara’s desk. “You’re finished for the day. We’re outta here.”
“What’s our cover?”
“A reducing seminar.”
“What are we reducing?”
“Our wallets.”
We enter the famed Red Door of Elizabeth Arden, walking past displays of lipsticks in tempting colors like cherry soufflé, strawberry ice and orange float, and take the elevator up. We sit elbow to elbow while our feet are buffed and sloughed, and our toenails painted persimmon. To prevent the polish from getting stamped with the impression from our shoes, the pedicurist slips plastic baggies over our toes before our stockings go back on. I grab the check. “It’s on me.”
“Let me at least cover the big toes,” Tamara says.
“I’m buying your silence.” I grab her arm. “Next stop,” I say, ushering her into a cab, “is the shrine.” We pull up in front of a store on West 55th Street.
“Shrine? What in God’s name—”
“Genuflect and then saunter in as if you’re a regular. And don’t reach for your inhaler when you see the prices—which are in dollars, not in lira.”
I see them the moment I walk in. They are on a par with no other. A black snakeskin stiletto with a four-inch heel and a stiff cord that snakes up the calf. Helmut Newton, where are you? No contest, these were Manolo Blahnik’s crowning achievement.
“THESE!” I screech to the salesman. “THESE!”
Tamara crosses herself and looks up. “Forgive her, Father.” She grabs me by the upper arm. “You’re losing more brain cells than pounds.” The look on my face makes her drop her voice to a basso profundo. “Twelve hundred dollars?”
“Don’t put a price on my happiness!” I slide out of my pumps, forgetting about the wrapping around my toes, and grin sweetly at the salesman. “Condoms to protect the pedicure.”
“And what size for madam?”
“Who cares, they’ll kill no matter what size they are,” I cry, as if suddenly high on laughing gas.
“Nine,” Tamara says snootily.
He nods, failing to share the joke, then heads into the back. I stroll around the store, narrowing my eyes and examining shoe after shoe, lifting each one, turning it, holding it up to the light, studying the craftsmanship from every angle, as a diamond dealer might study each facet of a prized specimen. Finally, the salesman reappears, carrying a box that he places before me.
I separate the tissue gingerly, lifting out a shoe as if I am unearthing the Holy Grail. I slip one on, and then the other, and slowly stand. I’ve been reborn. I’m a contender. I’m feeling as beautiful as that cover girl, Giselle whatever her name is.
“Tall at last,” I utter, walking my new seductive walk. “I’m breathless.”
Tamara’s not buying it and glares at the salesman’s icy face. “Attitude sickness.”
I teeter totter over to the mirror and study my feet. This is better than therapy. “I’ll take them,” I whisper, breathlessly.
“In what color, madam?”
I extend my platinum card between two fingers. “E-V-E-R-Y color.”
eight
It was the memory of the chunks of ripe avocado ignited by zesty bits of onion, lemon juice and cilantro that was the lure at Rosa Mexicano. It was a tough reservation, unless you were, well, me. Tex and I always start with frozen margaritas, the widemouth glasses encrusted with a ring of coarse salt that bites gently into your lips. We go through one round, then another. They slide down easy with chips and guacamole served just right in a thick pebbly stone mortar. We follow with beef enchiladas, sizzling steak or shrimp fajitas, or maybe grilled pork chops with black beans and rice. South of the border soul food. Tex and I hadn’t had dinner together in almost two weeks—a record—and now he was sitting opposite me and looking at me funny.
He scratches his head. “Something wrong, Maggie?”
“Why?”
“You lost weight. You okay?”
“Not ‘You look good, you look thinner.’ Duh, ‘You lost weight.’ Am I okay?”
Tex raises his eyebrows. He’s on unsteady ground now, I know his every facial twitch.
“Yes, in fact, I’ve never been better.” I toss my head back. “I am just terrific.” I can’t help snapping at him.
He holds his hands up in surrender. “You look great, you do, it’s just that you never lost weight deliberately before…” He shrugs. “So I figured…”
“Well, stop figuring, and thanks for the left-handed compliment.” It made me wonder about the kind of compliments he gave Sharon. Did he tell her he liked her dark roots? That he didn’t mind the chipped red nail polish? That he found her hard edge appealing? I flash him a venomous look, then turn away.
“I never thought you needed to lose weight,” he adds, almost muttering to himself. “I mean, I thought you looked good the way you were… I mean, who likes boyish, skinny women. They look sickly, underfed.”
I’m dining with the village idiot. And it was getting worse. I stare at him incredulously. “I looked good the way I was? The way I was was fat.” I shake my head and then reach for a corn chip, but think better of it and bury it in the salsa as though I’m stubbin
g out a cigarette.
“So what’s happening on Metro?” I spit out the last word like a curse. Why was it that even the smartest men seemed to have these deep gullies of ignorance? I never could understand how a man could be so brilliant in one area—tort law, for example, or quantum physics—while showing himself to be totally ignorant in understanding the basic human needs for love and compassion.
In women, on the other hand, ignorance was spread more evenly, like frosting on a cake. Tex could be so sharp when it came to the intricacies of a story. Every detail, every nuance, registered viscerally. But when it came to the fine points of anything to do with women, he was hopelessly dense. Was that why he went from date to date until he met Sharon, who, I was willing to swear, wore contacts to make her eyes look green? Sometimes I suspected that he even read the personals, and it wasn’t to look for dangling participles. What was he looking for anyway?
Thirty-nine-year-old newspaper editor, former football star, warmhearted, well-intentioned, but brain dead on issues relating to women, in need of smart, sexy broad with thick skin and infinite tolerance.
“How does Sharon stand you?” I say, trying to hold back a laugh. “You’re hopeless.”
He looks back at me like a wounded puppy, then slowly, a glint appears in his eye and his frown turns into a grin.
“I grow on women. It just takes a while.”
It’s impossible to stay mad at Tex. While narrowing his eyes and holding my gaze, his fork surreptitiously slides underneath the leftovers on my plate. Without looking down, I trap his fork with mine, then push my plate over to him.
“Here, have my fat.”
We talk about changes on the desk, and laugh over plans for the newsroom renovation. The only subject that never comes up is California.
Fat Chance Page 7
