AT LEAST TWICE A DAY I’M ASKED, “How did you do it?”
My first reaction is to have not the slightest idea what I did. But then someone remarks that I look different. Somehow I have managed to lose 32 pounds over the past year, moving quietly downward to a svelte 180.
For me it doesn’t seem that big a deal. In my mind, I’ve always been skinny. In fact, I remember standing in front of the big mirror in my parents’ bedroom, proudly counting my ribs.
Somewhere along the way, those ribs disappeared. After moving to Florida 18 years ago, I began downing liters of Pepsi and plates of spaghetti around midnight. The pattern went on for years, while my weight crept up to 212 pounds.
Six years ago I joined the YMCA and began a lunchtime exercise program that brought me down to 190. But after the birth of my daughter, I stopped going to the Y and began eating at home. Serious eating. All the way to 212 again.
I still saw myself as skinny, but there were clues that others did not. My own daughter, once she could talk, asked whether I was carrying her little sister.
Old college friends who had known me when I was skinny took delight in asking if I was trying out for the Hogs. When I tried to explain to new acquaintances that I hadn’t always been this way, they humored me.
Then there were those days when the Metro escalator was busted and I found myself trudging up about a mile’s worth of steel steps. By the three-quarters mark, I would have serious doubts about making the street.
Not to mention my pant size. I’d always been a solid 34, but then I started shopping at Nordstrom because it stocked 35-inch waistlines. Soon I was holding up 38s and thinking, “These are fat people’s pants.”
THE TURNING POINT CAME LAST SEPTEMBER when I decided to fulfill a lifelong ambition and learn to play poker.
It wasn’t that I didn’t know how the card game worked, but seeing, calling, raising, checking, and folding seemed like a lot to keep straight. So about a year ago, in search of enlightenment, I began venturing out to the Prince George’s County poker rooms on weekends.
Because I’d never been much for breakfast, my stomach was empty when the poker rooms opened at noon. I would concentrate hard on my cards and was always surprised upon looking at the clock to see how many hours had passed.
Around six each evening, waitresses would bring dinner around on plastic plates. Most of the players chowed down on these free meals. Not me. I figured on winning some hands while the rest of the table was sapping its energy on food. Before I knew it, 12 hours had passed in which I’d consumed nothing but iced tea, water, and an occasional piece of fruit.
It went on for months. No exercise but card playing. No sandwiches. Just lots of water, lots of iced tea. On the days I didn’t play, I could feel my appetite constricting. In the mirror, my face appeared narrower. Then I noticed that my extra-large shirts seemed more extra than usual.
Finally, I reached into the closet to try on some old clothes. They fit!
That’s when the questions began: How did I do it? “Poker,” I replied. “The all-poker diet.”
“How much did that cost you?” people would ask.
Ah, that was the good part. My detailed ledger of wins and losses showed that this all-poker regimen had actually made me $3,883 richer. Instead of paying to lose weight, I’d made $121 for every pound shed.
Now that’s a diet.
Not quite as svelte as when this story was written, national editor Kim I. Eisler worries that closing the Prince George’s County poker parlors could have serious public-health consequences.

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