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T O D A Y
Drama Queen candidates: Contestant No. 1
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TABLE TALK
Share home birthing tales and experiences in the Mothers Who Think discussion area of Table Talk
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R E C E N T L Y
Breaking the surface This sorcery isn't just for kids Of magic and single motherhood Conned by a Jewish mother One big dysfunctional family - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mamafesto
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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - How bacon changed my life
It was the most disgusting diet I'd ever been on, but in 14 days I'd lost 125 pounds! True, 105 of those were a vegan roommate, but I'd been gunning for her since my boyfriend moved out, leaving us with a whiny, Bronski Beat-playing obsessive who would change her outfit four times during dinner to get attention. Losing her was easy; the other 20 pounds were a trial. I was 26 and getting over a divorce, but more importantly a lover was passing on the Mr. Right role he was meant for. For me, the two diversions for a broken heart have always been ruining my hair and going on a new diet. The hair had already been permed, streaked, hennaed and bleached. I looked like Cher in "Moonstruck" at the end of a paintball fight. A double-chinned Cher who couldn't stop crying. A diet was looking good. Flipping through the National Enquirer for cogent news items, I found an ad with the caption, "Eat All the Fat You Want!!!" showing a skinny woman in a cat suit holding up a pan of cooked bacon. Wow. I read further about a "revolutionary chemical breakthrough" promising miracles with no real dietary changes. A vodka and french fry fan from way back, I was all for it. I immediately called in and gave a stranger my Visa card number. What's $29.95 against a pan of bacon and a flat stomach? Two weeks later, my package arrived: a small vial of magic pills, derived from grapefruit concentrate, and a tiny pamphlet. To maximize my diet, I was encouraged to eat a huge breakfast, with as much protein and organ meats as I could handle. Eggs, bacon, sausage and liver were to be eaten for breakfast with one tiny pill. Truth be told, I'm generally a vegetarian. But I wasn't going to let a few dead animals get in the way of me and skinny thighs. Every morning I fried bacon, sausage and liver in a pan. Sometimes an egg or two as garnish. The smoke of fried meats would linger over the kitchen, oozing into vegan Alice's bedroom, causing her to grimace as she greeted me in her first of 11 outfits. "Do you really need to eat that stuff?" I'd look at her drawn, pale lips and mumble, "Yesh, yesh I do," wolfing down bacon fat and crunchy liver bits. Two weeks later, somehow I'd lost 20 pounds. I can't tell you how it happened; it just did. Maybe I was so grossed out by breakfast that I didn't eat for the rest of the day. Or maybe grapefruits really are magic. All I know is my waist was smaller, my jaw more defined (though genetics can't be avoided), and my dear friend Esther and I came home to find a light-up makeup mirror, a pile of clothes and a note (sans rent check) from Alice. She had unexpectedly decided to move out for a while, a few months or more, and would we keep her clothes in a safe place? We immediately threw them onto the street, and fried up the rest of the sausages and bacon.
Eleven years later, I still flip through magazines for that ad. Even though I'm now a more vehement vegetarian, with tofu and veggie burgers as my mainstay, even though I sport a large Captain Blood scar on my chest
from gall bladder surgery, I'd trade it all to lose those 20 pounds once more.
Contestant No. 1 | Contestant No. 2 | Contestant No. 3
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