Dieters Circle the Wagons as Season Calorie Count Mounts

Mmmmmmmm, the holidays.

That time of the year when sagging tables groan under the weight of Butterball turkeys, greasy stuffing, reservoirs of glutinous gravies, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, cranberry sauce, glazed yams topped with melted marshmallow. And did someone say pecan pie?

It’s enough to induce insulin shock just thinking about it.

But for those dedicated to pound-shedding, it is the season for circling the wagons. It’s the mean season, to be sure, for all the patrons of Weight Watchers, Diet Center, Nutri System, Cambridge Diet, Overeaters Anonymous and countless other personal schemes of self-restraint.

Two months of mounting calories--from Halloween candies through Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year’s champagne--take their toll of all but the strongest. Or thinnest.

The membership of Weight Watchers, for example, dips to its annual low at this time of the year, said spokeswoman Kathleen Roberta. Then it pops back up to its peak again early in January, she added.

“It’s just human nature to put things off to New Year’s,” Roberta said, surveying a Tuesday evening meeting at the K mart Plaza in Orange. “Many in the general public see dieting as deprivation. It doesn’t have to be. These are the committed ones.”

As things got under way, team leader Ruth Gilbert began rallying the troops.

“Good evening! You’re just having so much fun out there,” she said.

A stuffed flannel fowl, resembling the famous holiday bird of Plymouth Rock lore, perched on the speaker’s dais. A sign pinned to its breast read: “Don’t let Turkey get you down.”

Gilbert cheered her team of 34 women and one boy on to greater sacrifice.

“Now, here come the holidays,” she cautioned.

Then she launched into a role-playing exercise, pretending, in this case, to be the pushy relatives sure to tempt one and all at holiday dinner tables.

“My gosh, Earl, look at you,” she said, pointing at no one in particular. “Too gaunt already and thin. Eat something.” A pause. “What are you going to do?” she asked the group.

“Instead of a couple of big scoops of dressing, I’ll take a spoonful,” one member volunteered, with some hesitation.

“That’s right--because you have a plan!” Gilbert said. “Give her a hand.” Everyone clapped.

Inspired, other members weighed in with their own tales of temptation and sacrifice.

“My mom makes the best corn bread and stuffing,” one woman said, as a hum of anticipation and empathy spread through the group. But the woman said she and her sister have made a holiday pact.

“If we try to taste the dressing, we smack each other’s hands,” she said, quickly adding a confession: “But sometimes we’ll eat it raw.”

Then someone confessed to slathering gobs of cream cheese on a bagel, before forking down the free sample of key lime pie. That set off a hub-hub, with everyone wanting to know the calorie count on cream cheese.

“It’s at least 40,000!” one pessimist called out. Gilbert came in with a much lower figure but some commented about the microscopic portion of cheese involved.

December, with its special crush of holiday parties, poses the toughest dilemma of the year for the pound wise, said Rafaella Yates, a weight loss class leader.

“People love us to death with food,” she said. “Here it comes, like an open bar at the alcoholic.”

Over the years, Yates said, she has heard many confessions of December sin and redemption. But mostly sin.

“I’m 16 years on this program,” she said. “I’ve heard the best.”

Some favorites:

- “I didn’t find anything in the room I didn’t like except the people.”

- “I saw a table, and the hors d’oeuvres actually grabbed my armpit.”

- “If it didn’t move, I salted it and ate it.”

“Oh, honey,” she said, “you wouldn’t believe what we hear.”