9 months ago I weighed, on a bad day, 180 pounds. On the worst day it was 183. Today I weigh 147 and actually my doctor put his hands on his hips and instructed me to put on five pounds.
Everyone asks how I did it. Did I hit the gym? Did I do the Southbeach? Did I eliminate all carbs? Did I eliminate fat? Did I stick my finger down my throat?
Long long ago I was watching Julia Child interact with some french chef, perhaps Jacques Pepin. As long ago as this was it was at the point in her career where she mostly left the cooking to the spryer cooks and herself hovered and guided. The chef in this case was preparing foie gras, about which I’ve spoken at length. She admonished the audience that one has to be philosophical about the way one eats, and that even though foie gras is unbelievably delicious, it’s better to savor the experience of the three bites with a glass of Sauternes than to gorge oneself on half a lobe and ruin his evening. Those words came back to me when I put on a bathing suit last spring and could not stand to look at myself in the mirror.
I cogitated and determined my philosophy would be to eat half of what is put in front of me. Or to only cook half what I thought I wanted. Also, little snacks. A handful of nuts or grapes. I didn’t quit eating carbs or bread, but I quit eating bread at breakfast except on Sunday omrning when my whole family tends to gather for my dad’s incredible waffles.
The hard part about this philosophy is that I could have a Big Mac, but I could only eat half of it. This is hard on a psychological level because you think to yourself, “I paid full price for this, so I should eat it all.” The philosoph has to overtake te psychology and say, “No, you don’t have to eat it all.” “But there are starving kids in Africa.” “So send the other half of your burger to Africa.” And so the dialogue went.
Even though it’s hard in the moment to toss out the leftover pizza or pasta or even salad, once you get used to doing it, it doesn’t bother you after a while and instead I would take a mean-spiritedly smug gander around the room at other diners intent on cleaning their plates and bitching that now they have to go to the gym. But the next step is enduring the first five weeks. In that period, as you train your body that resistance is NOT futile, you don’t see much in the way of results. On the contrary, your bathroom experiences change (oh I neglected I started drinking the requisite 8 glasses of water a day, too). I won’t go into the grisly details but when your diet changes, there are consequences.
And then one day, I don’t remember the date, but about 6 weeks into this new approach, someone said, “you’re losing weight.” I weighed myself and I had come down to 176. I was heartened. Also, this was the beginning of the summer and I started swimming, which meant I was raising my metabolism, but not dreading the exercise; rather, looking forward to it because I love the water. Also, I was carefully cultivating a rich suntan, not the smelly burned up french fried kind you get in the booth, but the kind you get from careful exposure to the sun.
Suddenly, my face is thinner, my body’s tighter, my color is golden and the whole philosophy has come to be an effortless endeavor. One thing that’s odd is my hair, which tends to be wavy (or downright curly when it’s long) became srtaight. I almost didn’t recognize myself and so I let Julie, who cuts my hair, take some dramatic license. One day in October I was at my friend’s house listening to his band rehearse and one of the guitarist’s girlfriend (they being ages 21 and 20) got mad because her boyfriend seemed to like his guitar more than her (which I suppose in that moment would be an accurate assessment), so she started acively flirting with me. She proved to be smart and articulate and effervescent and I enjoyed the conversation. I asked if he would come out to Lincoln Street with me (a wine bar) so we could continue our conversation in a quiter location and sae told me she couldn’t go in there because she is only 20 years old. Oh …. then coffee?
Then the magic moment. She asked how old I was and before I could say, “40″ she guessed, “28? 29?”
Oh
MY
GOD
I told her I was 40 and she didn’t believe me. I assured her it was true and she finally believed me. Anyway, I’ve known her for a while and she’s fun to hang out with. She and her boyfriend are exes now and he’s an interesting character, as well, and it’s very interesting to be so in touch with a completely other generation. They could be my kids.
Then I ran into someone I used to work with and she didn’t recognize me. She said, “Do you have a brother? Maybe an older brother?” I just laughed and told her who I was and she grew alarmed. “Are you sick? You don’t LOOK sick but you’re too thin. You need to gain weight!” A few days later, having a physical, my own doctor of ten years told me to gain 5 pounds. Carefully, of course. He didn’t mean for me to go out and eat nothing but ice cream for a week. And the holidays were coming so I knew there would be lots of snacking and drinking and parties and blah blah blah, plus Hilda had covered her pool for the fall and winter. I knew I would gain 5 pounds. I gained 7. 
Eat half.