You ever go on a diet? I’ve been on lots and lots of them, and they all go kind of the same way. I wake up Monday morning, full of enthusiasm to start the new diet.  I have that all-important first meal of the day, something with lots of fiber and all that.  I eat…

All diets work, even the gimmicky ones. You want to spend the next six weeks eathing nothing but cabbage soup?  You’ll lose weight.  Nothing but carbs?  You’ll lose weight.  No carbs, just protein?  You’ll lose weight.  Grapefruit, nothing but luscious grapefruit?  You’ll lose weight.  And of course, if you actually do something smart like simply…

I used to live on the fourth floor of a walkup brownstone on the upper west side of Manhattan.  Lots of stairs. I hated walking up those stairs every day, and I particularly hated carrying heavy things up the stairs.  So when we bought stuff like furniture or groceries, we would usually get them delivered.…