Double Diet is an excerpt from the book "The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted"
Back then:
o “"Now listen. I am fifteen pounds up from where I want to be. I'm going to need you to help me, okay?'' She had been told at Weight Watchers that people who had supportive partners did a lot better at losing weight.”
o “while he ate his Snickers pie. "Whew!" he said, after a few bites. "Full. I can't finish it. You want it?" He pushed the pie toward her, and she devoured it”
Now
· “now, Marsha and Tom are double dieting”
· Their kids have grown up so now they focus on middle-aged things like cholesterol
· Tom would rather die than go to Weight Watchers
· Marsha suggests that Tom going and admitting todieting would set a good example for other men
· Marsha orders a large café caramel which Tom critiques is just liquid sugar
o “"Uh-huh," Tom says. Then he says, "You're going to be very bad at this." Marsha feels the blood rise in her face. Who does he think he's talking to, some novice, some rank beginner like him? "Do you know how many diets I've been on?" she asks. "My point," he says, lightly.”
· Tom tells her she can only have one piece of bread each day --> “Go to hell,' Marsha says. "I'm not doing this diet. It's stupid. I am doing Weight Watchers, where you eat whatever you want so long as you—"
· Tom keeps telling her what she can and can’t eat on the diet that they are doing together
o Tom lost 12 pounds
· “Tom's diet is ridiculous; it thinks you're an automaton who can just eat the same thing every day”
· “Marsha leaves the steak but tells Tom that she will be stopping for an ice cream on the way home, it is her birthday and she can have ice cream on her birthday.”
· Marsha is losing hope: “I keep dieting and dieting and dieting and I just... I just... It doesn't work! I diet; I lose; it comes back on. I diet; I lose; it comes back on. I just can't keep it off, and now especially I can't because my body does not want me to, estrogen is stored in fat cells, and I need to get estrogen some way because I don't make it anymore because I don't have any more periods, I haven't menstruated for years”
o She reveals she is trying to lose weight for him, to be attractive for him
· They agree to getting a pizza