“You have to swear, swear, not to tell a soul, otherwise I’m going to be burned at the stake, excommunicated from the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. They’ll haul me before them, like Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms—”
“Never tried that diet, any good?”
I drop my head in prayer. “The Maggie who’s going to L.A. is going to attempt something more far-reaching than ever before.”
“Like?”
“With my motivation at an all-time high, I’m embarking on a stealth-bomber food plan and will emerge my thin twin.” I hold up my fist triumphantly. “Chiseled, whittled down, tight, taut, tantalizing, terrific and T-H-I-N!”
“Say it,” Tamara says. “Say it.”
“THIN.”
She smiles, then suddenly her eyes cloud over. “But how? You can’t diet, you don’t, you won’t. Diets are a sham, a lie, a trap to undermine the empowerment of liberated twenty-first-century women, enslave them mentally and hold them politically hostage. Your whole theory of who you are, self-love and acceptance and all that bologna that you’ve made your name by, not to say a career out of, is going out the window because some movie maharaja calls you up and asks for a little advice? Keep it together, Maggie—we’re talking just another M A N—so maybe you want to think this one through a little more. Maybe you’re bein’ just a trifle rash, you know what I’m sayin’?”
“I’m doing it, Tamara—total body and fender work. This is just a short leave of absence from my public persona. And it will surely be my last attempt to shake my booty and get it together. I’m doing it because if there was ever a motivation for me to recreate myself, this is it. If the thought of coaching Mike Taylor can’t fire me into a body makeover and be successful where legions of others have failed, then there’s no hope for anyone—EVER! This is the acid test, Tamara. BIOLOGICAL WARFARE! I can’t ever really and truly accept the concept of self-acceptance unless I know what my capabilities are. I need to do this. You with me?”
“Spreadsheets are starting to call my name again,” she says, going out the door.
“Now, that’s aberrant. C’mon, Tamara,” I yell as she leaves. “This is going to be fun!”
four
Don’t Worry. Be Happy. Weigh Less.
Stress. I’m an expert, aren’t you? Isn’t everyone? Does it make you eat more? Duh.
Who doesn’t walk, zombielike, into the kitchen for comfort as soon as the world gets too much to handle? Well, now the scientific community weighs in (ha) with this news and I hope it helps rid you of some of your guilt because, dear hearts, it’s not just a matter of willpower: Your body chemistry is partly to blame.
Stress does make you eat more—especially sweets—because it causes the body to produce more of a hormone called cortisol. And not only do you eat more, but the fat that you put on as a result, is the “deep-belly” stuff that’s associated with a higher risk of health problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and cancer.
And while some women experience elevated levels of stress and cortisol periodically, depending on what is happening in their lives, others suffer from “toxic stress,” in the words of Elissa Epel, Ph.D., a health psychology researcher at the University of California at San Francisco. “Toxic” or long-term stress is associated with feeling helpless and defeated. It leads to perpetually high cortisol levels that invite deep abdominal fat to be deposited—and that can happen whether you’re fat or thin. So bottom line: It’s a lot more complicated than just blaming your paunchy gut on the fact that you can’t resist that second or third Krispy Kreme.
What to do?
* If stress is long-term, ditch the lousy job, or the lousy husband, or at least think about therapy to change the dynamic.
* When you’re tempted to pig out, try to steer clear of the refined, sugary stuff that causes insulin levels to soar and then drop, making your urge to eat even greater.
* Try to counteract the urge to eat by doing something physical—sweeping the floor works and so does scrubbing the bathroom—at the very least, get yourself out of the house, and particularly away from the refrigerator.
* Next time you do head to the refrigerator, stop and ask yourself: Why am I eating? Better yet, needlepoint those words onto a pillow that you can stare at every time you get up off the couch heading for the kitchen. If the answer, honestly, isn’t hunger—assuming you remember what that feels like—get yourself into another room.
“So you’re heading home?” I look up from my column to see Tex carrying his briefcase. He looks like he could be a poster boy for my article on stress.
“Mitchum’s on the late movie,” he says, as if that explains it all.
Tex, the movie buff, worships Mitchum. I’d heard it all before. Mitchum, the sadistic ex-con in Cape Fear; the American destroyer skipper in The Enemy Below; the cool American up against Japanese gangsters in The Yakuza. The heavy-lidded, laconic Mitchum.
“No one came close,” he said. He had seen every one of his movies three, maybe four times. “That swaggering stride,” he says, “the great laid-back antihero. So completely his own man, no matter what the role. And so cool.”
I bought Tex Mitchum’s biography and we laughed over the part about the end of his life. When Mitchum’s emphysema worsened, he had to be put on oxygen. His droll comment: “I only need it to breathe.”
When Tex walked into the office the next morning, it was clear that his moviefest had included a six-pack, maybe two.
“You okay?”
“If you don’t count the fact that the back of my head feels like it was slammed with a brick.”
Before he opens the mail, he reaches into his bottom desk drawer and shakes out two extra-strength Excedrin. He grabs his University of Texas mug, and goes over to Metro’s Mr. Coffee and fills it too full. Coffee starts to flow over the rim.
“Shit,” he says, trying to sip it down, failing miserably, not to mention scalding his tongue. “What a piece of shit this is,” he says, slamming the coffeepot.
Tex puts on a good show. I sit down to enjoy it. I consider telling him he’s cute when he’s mad, but decide against it.
“With Brauns, Toshibas and Cuisinarts, what MORON spent the company’s money on a Mr. Coffee?”
The secretary’s back becomes his target.
“Not that nine-tenths of the idiots in this office know the first thing about good coffee anyway.”
He picks up a coffee can bought at the supermarket and looks at it mockingly. “I should shove the poor excuse for a coffeepot—and the swill that’s in it—off the shelf, but as sure as day follows night, it will be magically replaced the next day with another one, a clone, that makes the same weak, lousy, piss-poor excuse for coffee.”
The moment he sits down at his desk, he reaches for his prop: the black cowboy hat that he wears when he wants to disappear. He pulls the brim down, nearly covering his puppy-dog eyes. It looks good, actually. What is it about the cowboy mystique? He glances at the slew of mail that always greets him.
“Releases, releases, more releases,” he mumbles, tossing a pile of them in the garbage. They land with a thwack that makes the secretary turn and give him a stern look.
“What a job it is to sit in an office all day and write pumped-up garbage about your client and their great new innovative product. NEWS. EMBARGOED UNTIL…” He laughs weirdly. I should be going, but I stay.
Larry Arnold, the number two man on Metro, sits down at the desk next to him and peers under the brim of the hat.