A Pound a Day
Denise needed to lose a pound a day if she was to fit into her size-10 dress in time for the wedding. First she banished the ice cream and cookies to the deep freeze of her freezer. Then she ate almost exclusively vegetables for lunch, lettuce and peppers and zucchini drizzled in no-taste Italian. She began visiting the gym instead of just paying for the privilege. One day Denise got her hair cut, and marveled at how the pound of lost hair gave her some breathing room. From that day on, Denise employed more tricks to get her bathroom scale to always read one number lower than the day before. She would not drink anything. She gave blood weekly. She started to use dipping tobacco instead of cigarettes, and the spat-out dip juice took a few pounds of water weight off. She added blankets to her bed and maxed out the heat in her apartment and car. The wedding came and went and she was still finding ways to lose a pound a day. There was still spin classes, saunas, liposuction, mastectomies, bulimia, tapeworms…