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"Making the Case for Yourself: A Diet Book for Smart Women"
"Dining with the Duchess: Making Everyday Meals a Special Occasion" |
BY ELIZABETH RAPOPORT | It's no coincidence that publishers flood the bookstores with diet books during the heartless winter months. We've all sprouted Beanie Babies on our hips and thighs thanks to all that Brie en croûte we downed between Thanksgiving and New Year's. We've dashed into Bloomingdale's for tush-concealing chenille and latex-infused black leggings, only to be mocked by the gaily colored scanties of the "cruisewear" displays. Hardened by our New Year's resolutions, battered by Seasonal Affective Disorder, we're primed to rush, momentarily aerobic, to the diet and fitness racks at Barnes & Noble.
As an acquiring book editor, I am practically immune to the charms of diet books. I believe, deep down, that every one of us already knows everything we need to know to lose weight, and my editorial lip curls reflexively when a literary agent breathlessly pitches me the next "guaranteed bestseller" with the unbeatable hook. Will it be the celebrity promoter (why hasn't Pat Buckley stepped up to the plate?), the new food group (my money's on wheat berries and the juice from jars of maraschino cherries), the new twist on results ("lose 10 pounds in 10 days or we'll pay for your liposuction!")? But as a prospective consumer with a few Beanie Babies of her own, I am deeply conflicted about the issue. I deplore women's abiding unhappiness with their weight. I wish I were a more highly evolved being, far above the Battle of the Bulge. But I'm not, and I'm not alone. So a scan of two of the season's most fascinating offerings is in order: Susan Estrich's "Making the Case For Yourself: A Diet Book for Smart Women" and "Dining with the Duchess: Making Everyday Meals a Special Occasion" "by" Sarah, Duchess of York, and Weight Watchers.
Estrich -- the first woman editor of the Harvard Law Review, legal scholar, Michael Dukakis presidential campaign manager and professor of law at the University of Southern California -- poses the question most of us duck: How can we be so totally competent at work but such failures when we diet? Estrich argues that basically it's because we save the mental firepower for everybody but ourselves. "You know the mindset you use to succeed -- the smart, competent woman who pulls off the near-impossible every day. The one who gets up in the night, finds the Motrin, takes care of the kid with the fever, gets out of bed three hours later to get the other one ready for school and to get to work yourself, where you keep six balls in the air, while you have the drugstore on hold trying to find the prescription the pediatrician called in. You know this woman. What if she went on a diet? ... I'm here to tell you, you can resist a dried-up danish."
Estrich has studied all the diet books and knows that we want the gimmick. We need the gimmick; boredom is the enemy, and shiny objects distract us. Hers is to put us in the courtroom, complete with a legal contract, interrogatories and memos to the file, building a lawyer's case for dieting aimed at our heads when our hands are reaching for the muffins. The idea is we'll negotiate the terms of the diet ahead of time, we'll sign the paperwork, and then negotiating time is over, baby -- the case is bound over for trial, appeal denied. Then it's on to Phase Two, Susan's Miracle Diet: three days of "The Bad Girls Diet" (crash dieting), five days of the "Hollywood Diet," five days of the "Fresser" all-you-can-eat-of-bunny-food diet, five days of the "Anything in Moderation" diet, then on to the final "Grown-up Diet" and summation.
Prepared to loathe the book and rubbing my palms together in anticipation of the fun I would have at Estrich's expense, I found myself instead rooting for her book's success. Hers is a thoughtful, amusing, honest, readable book. How terrific to have One of Us, a smart, funny girlfriend, making a legally airtight case for why we can diet successfully this time, arguing calmly and compellingly from principles of case law rather than hectoring, cheerleading or making us count fat grams.
I confess I had my moments of doubt. Shouldn't this legal eagle be fighting for the forces of good over evil, making the same airtight case that we should love our bodies as they are and sidestep supermodel madness? On the other hand, I give her huge credit for being honest enough to admit that she's vain about her looks (so sue her). "Embrace vanity," Estrich writes. "I'm all for vanity: it's the only hope against the cheeseburger." OK, then, couldn't this distaff Dershowitz for dieters cut us a back-room deal? Find the legal loophole that would allow us to plea-bargain a coconut Mounds bar down to one serving of fruit? Alas, no. I'm sorry to report that the foundation of "Susan's Miracle Diet, Part l" is -- the heart sinks -- cabbage soup. Susan, mon petite chou, I'd do anything for you, so grateful am I that you've brought a measure of wit and sagacity to the dieting dog fights, but I'm still swallowing hard.
N E X T+P A G E: Sarah: I don't cook, but I do eat
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