The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten [50]
Day Six. Home again. It is late afternoon. If I weigh myself now, the scale will report a number that is two or three pounds higher than it will be tomorrow morning. I will get discouraged and go on a binge. Better wait.
On my kitchen table stands a towering ziggurat of candy boxes and tins and bags, assembled for my Christmas article on mail-order treats. There are four kinds of chocolate-covered toffee, Rainforest Crunch, hazelnuts and almonds covered in Valrhona chocolate, shortbread, chocolate-dipped macadamia nuts from Maui, a ten-pound slab of bittersweet Merckens chocolate, three flavors of brittle, chocolate truffles, bonbons both dipped and filled, and graham crackers covered in thick, delicious dark chocolate from Cafe Beaujolais. I pack nearly everything into two bulging shopping bags and send them off to Vogue. Let them gorge on bad carbohydrates.
Day Seven. Down to 167.5! I have lost two and a half pounds in six days—6.66 ounces a day! At this rate it will take me only eighty-four days to lose 560 ounces, precisely the 35 pounds by which the charts tell me I exceed my ideal weight! Eighty-four days is twelve weeks. Eleven to go.
I walk down to Greenwich Village and shop for bran flakes (without forbidden raisins), seven-grain bread, skim milk, diet Sprite, caffeine-free diet Pepsi, French beans and bulbs of fennel, four thick and marbled rib steaks, two ducks, ten pounds of chicken wings (to be roasted, for snacks), a box of NutraSweet, four kinds of French cheeses, low-fat artificially sweetened vanilla yogurt, six varieties of Aidells sausages, a bag of exotic and fabulously expensive salad greens, fresh cured olives from Apulia, and four types of apples. This, with minor variations, will be my diet at home for the next three weeks.
I thumb through a book of Montignac recipes, published in French. I own dozens of French cookbooks filled with dishes that already fit within his rules or can easily be made to do so. But I am not inspired to cook. Slowly, day by day, I am losing interest in cuisine. I wonder if I am suited to any other line of work.
Day Eight. I awaken so hungry that I eat breakfast before I remember to weigh myself. Better not weigh myself now.
My barber of eight years has gone out of business. This is a complete and total disaster. Normally, I would have a candy bar or two to help me solve the problem. Better not go outside. That’s where the candy stores are.
Day Nine. 167.5. Not quite as breathtaking as the first time I weighed 167.5, two days ago. My rate of weight loss is down to five ounces a day. Maybe something is wrong with my old Detecto Doctor’s Scale.
I dig up the January 1993 issue of Consumer Reports and its analysis of bathroom scales. The Health O Meter 840 is the highest rated. The Salter Electronic 971, though rated seventh, is the most accurate and gives the most consistent readings; it must have been downgraded for some other reason. Both use the latest in strain-gauge technology and contain no old-fashioned springs. Both have square white platforms, activate when you step on them, take a tantalizing six seconds to decide what you weigh, and tell you about it in large, red LEDs. The Health O Meter is easier to read, and it measures your weight in half pounds. Neither is as accurate as a full-blown balance-beam scale with sliding weights. But those cost two hundred dollars and up.
I go out and buy one Health O Meter and one Salter. Now my bathroom floor is littered with scales. I warn my wife not to trip on the way to the shower.
Day Twelve. Today I weigh 166.5, 166.5, and 167, depending on which scale you believe. I slide the old Detecto into the corner and go totally solid-state.
One bowl of bran flakes takes four little envelopes of Equal to make edible. I have become proficient at emptying all four with one deft twist of my wrist.
I feel wired this morning. The sensation is essentially pleasant, but I am suspicious of the coffee and of the person who brewed