Take A Buddy To South Beach

“I want candy. I want candy.” Bow Wow Wow

To my dear friends who’ve heard about this journey, and have gasped and suspected me on a runaway train to Anorexiaville, one large disclaimer: I admit it. I have never had a truly fat day in my life. And I eat. You’ve seen me eat. A few of you see me put away pizza like a USC linebacker at Dave and Laura’s house every Sunday night. But I had to do something.

Because I have this sugar problem. If there is such a thing as a bona fide sugar addiction, you’re looking at Betty Ford. My sweet tooth is a tyrannical master. I mean it; whereas people nowadays will say “give me some sugar” to mean something romantic and cozy, I’m telling you if it’s me, just do it. Take the instruction at face value, because the price if I don’t get it is too high for you to pay. Apple fritters are my favorite, and are readily available at any donut shop, so get going. Oh – and ask them to heat it.

Cut me a break, I’m German. Sugar was practically a currency to our family. Corn syrup flowed from the taps in that house. The stuff never missed a family gathering, and in fact became a family member all its own. A family member whom I would always wonder, deep down, did my parents love more than me?

We krauts are so fond of those confectionary pleasures. My stepfather, a German himself, always made light of it – he’s always made more jokes about the family’s eating habits than, well, than I do. Even going so far as to remark here and there that the sticky white demon was "good for" a person. I know he was kidding. But evidently in my youth, I did not. I’m told that one day while sitting in the breakfast nook at the house of my very German grandmother, even she could see a problem with the amount of sugar I was spooning onto my cereal, and tried to interfere. I was having none of this nonsense and corrected, “Well, Grand-ma! Don’t you know that sugar is GOOD for you?” So cute. Oh, you poor, trusting little soul. Will you stand by your convictions when you’re the only one in your second grade class with false teeth?

Digression. Apologies. The point is, I was about to take on a task that goes against the very grain of my nature. All grown, out on my own, and firmly rooted in the belief that Baskin-Robbins is where good German girls go when they die, I simply took a second look. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease…none of them sounded like things I would much enjoy. I decided to take control while I still weighed plenty less than my car.

So, Bryan and I started noticing around the same time as each other that we had been slapping on a bit of extra poundage around our midsections – each noticing this about only himself and not the other one, or boy would you be reading a different story right now. It was now I fully realized that being over thirty meant our bodies were finally telling us they’d had enough – this unwritten agreement we’d had in college about us doing anything we felt like to them while they stayed independently taut and hearty was expired and no longer eligible for renewal. I know this is a gradual process, but to me it felt more sudden. Like one day I was sitting at a stoplight when I glanced down at my body, and she said, “That’s it, sister - the free ride is over. You’re going to get off your sorry butt and carry this honey of a load yourself from now on.” I can’t lie – it hurt being dumped in this cold and candid way, but my body and I had both known this time would come, and that when it did she would be making the first move, because I was too chicken and oh so very lazy.

So my man and I talked. His end of the conversation began exactly as it was supposed to: “What’re you, crazy? Baby, you look awesome. I’m the one who’s fat…” And after he had paid his boyfriendly dues, I crept carefully past the part where a girl easily gets into trouble – the moment where she should have dropped it sooner and accidentally corners the poor sap into agreeing that…well…now that she mentions it…she could stand to drop a few. I was not prepared to lose weight and my boyfriend at the same time, so I just kissed him and moved on.

Both of us dissatisfied with what the mirror had to say, I went forth and read up on this and that diet, just to see what sort of eating habits might target the fat that builds up around the waist. The answer my meticulous research returned was that it was a good idea to steer away from carbohydrates for a while, especially the processed, “bad” carbs – you know, the ones you really, really love eating and which help make life worth living. You would not be required to do this for the entire plan, but survive a few weeks of it and your round little tummy would thank you by being more little and less round. This was hardly new – the low-carb craze was already beyond its heyday by the time he and I caught on that there may actually be something to it.

The South Beach Diet. Better than Atkins, more advanced, and certainly easier. The book and supporting experts were most encouraging about this first step in the process, the one without your carbohydrate friends, which goes by the name of “Phase I.” They report that most people are fine after a couple of days, their cravings having disappeared, and their hunger being satisfied at all times. We were sold. I led the way, Bryan jumping right on my bandwagon, the expectation being that, between the two of us, the bandwagon would be sixteen to twenty six pounds lighter by the end of two weeks.

Turned out cutting those bad ol’ carbohydrates was darn hard and made us…what’s the word…crabby. And yes – though in our beginner’s enthusiasm we had denied it for as long as we could – also hungry. (Bryan’s diagnosis: “That guy’s full of crap.”) So there was exceptional bickering over increasingly small things, until the day it hit us that we shouldn’t be shooting the soldiers in our own platoon, and we squeezed together again to get the job done. The enemy was still an unrelenting bastard, but at least we were again united and standing.

We did well for a time after this, even perfectly. And then, quite simply, we didn’t. After about eight days of demonstrating a Marine Corps level of discipline, the desire for bread, or even any of bread’s most distant cousins, began to itch us both. When the yearning for any member of the carbohydrate family – we would have taken the embarrassing, creepy uncle the other carbs never talk about – became too much to bear, we scratched that itch. But to our military credit, just a little. We had so far been allowed almost nothing but eggs for breakfast, and now understood how something you normally like could become something vile, once it seems to be coming from every orifice you have available. Therefore, the first time we gave in, we dishonorably ate not eggs but yogurt in the morning. Later the same day we shared a handful of tortilla chips, and giggled like two ornery little scallywags sitting behind the church with a box of cheap cigars.

These tiny acts of nutritional indiscretion were a slippery slope, of course, and as these things normally do, quickly led to bigger crimes. Bryan started asking my opinion about the grey area that held things like popcorn, ketchup, and baked beans. Then came the more serious speculation on both our parts: if part-skim ricotta cheese is acceptable…then why not nacho cheese? And who eats nacho cheese without all that other stuff underneath it? Say, what do you think of a harmless little plate of chili fries? One generous slice of black forest cake? Two fistfuls of deep-fried Mounds bars?

At last I was accosted by the vision that saved us: Bryan arriving home from work, and following a staggered, granulated trail to the bathroom. He bangs on the door, and my voice, now twisted from young and womanly into “Gollum” of Lord of the Rings stabs back, "Leave me alone! I don’t want your help!”

And so we were back on track.

We were not yet out of Phase I (which by now I was to referring to as the “Screw You, Dr. Agatston” phase) one Saturday, when Bryan and I had split off to run errands, and the imperative stop at the supermarket had fallen upon him. I arrived back at my place before he did, and moments later he called and mentioned he had picked up a rotisserie chicken for dinner. I love rotisserie chicken, and by the time it arrived, I’d had a good twenty-five minutes to dream about the little devil. I was lying on the couch, faint with sucrose deprivation, when I heard Bryan’s key in the door. My hot, luscious bad boy was here at last, and so was Bryan. For all the foresight and discussion that had gone into this new eating program, this spicy little visitor had been unplanned, and I greeted him with the dietary gusto of Henry VIII and the agility of a junior high track star – scaling the coffee table in a blur, jumping into the doorframe, and spearing the beast onto my club with a grunt.

“Give me the bird,” I groaned.

Now, here was a man who had just returned from the thankless, tedious, and costly chore of food shopping, fifty percent of which was for me, with no thought of reimbursement. With a reception like this, it’s some wonder I wasn’t flipped the bird instead. And were it not for the grocery bags crowding his hands, who knows?

“You could help me” was all the scolding I sustained for this greedy little display. Which I of course gratefully did. I mean, a rotisserie chicken!

We lived. We cleared the dark and treacherous woods of Phase I, sailed through Phase II, and presently reside, sort of, in the permanent state of Phase III. And through it all, we learned the hard, scientific facts: Diets stink. Do I still love sugar? Mmmm…sugar. But Bryan lost a few pounds, and hey, so did I. We changed our way of looking at food a bit, and are healthier for it. We even stayed together.

Not bad for a girl whose first solid food was a cheese Danish.