Helena shuddered. “That’s because on the second day the hormone ghrelin—I called it gremlin—kicks in. And it screams at your stomach to growl, cramp and will even send out messages to shake and pump less blood to your brain so you’re dizzy and feeling sick.”

“That’s when I gave up.” Marissa didn’t admit she’d tried it a half-dozen times, with the same result every time. Doing the same thing over and over thinking the outcome would change. Huh, she thought—when the outcome of a stupid plan didn’t change no matter how often I did it, who did I blame? Not the plan. I blamed myself.

Enough of that, she told herself.

“Good, you listened. The gremlin’s entire purpose is to get you to eat. After all, you are starving to death—what else is your body to make of your low-calorie intake? Then!” Helena paused meaningfully. “You suck up all the willpower you’ve got and make it day three. You are now technically starving. The diet says you’re losing water and fat. But you’re not.”

Trying not to recall how many times she’d tried similar diets during her early twenties and always ended them with a bag of Oreos or pepperoni pizza, Marissa asked, “What is happening?”

“Your clever body, the product of tens of thousands of years of evolution, burns what you don’t need—muscle. You’re starving, you don’t need to run a marathon. So it burns muscle. The scariest bit is that your heart is a muscle like any other. So its capacity is being reduced along with your glutes and deltoids and so on.”

“Wow.” Marissa tried to take that in. “So a diet like that you don’t lose fat and when you give it up you feel like crap both psychically and physically. That’s a complete downward cascade.”

“And after losing muscle you’re even less likely to exercise and your body desperately hoards fat because of the starvation trauma you just put it through. The entire experience trained your body to keep the fat.”

“So there you are—every pound comes back, double.” Marissa sighed heavily. She had been there so many times.

“So talk your friend out of it. A diet that restricts choices, prompts moderate and wise eating is what we all need.”

“Thank you. I’ll talk to her tomorrow. Um, so, about my exercise. Too often and not long enough?” A quick trip to the gym fit so easily into her schedule. She felt good about making herself go almost every day.

“Yeah. You need more variety and the good news is there are things you can do that are almost free. Your time is a valuable enough investment. They involve getting out of the gym. When you make some progress, the gym can help you hone specific areas. In bad weather those machines are great. But right now, given that you seriously want to lose fat and build some endurance, walking with hand or ankle weights for no less than an hour, three times a week, will give you slow and steady progress toward your goals. Change your gym focus from cardio like I said, and go no more than three times a week.”