The Cookie Jar Diet

continued

Three years later, Thatai still works at Zingerman's, yet she weighs just 167 pounds. It sounds like a television promotion for a miracle diet: Lose weight-lots of it!-despite temptations everywhere. But she's not the only Ann Arborite who's managed to slim down while working around fantastic foods: Tammy Coxen lost weight her entire first year in business-while organizing food tastings and making chocolates. And Lewis John Veraldi dropped ninety pounds as an assistant pastry chef at La Dolce Vita.

Here's how they did it.

“My fat was happy fat,” Thatai recalls. “I was married, comfortable.” And then the girls came along.

But as her weight climbed, being fat became a problem. “I weighed 310 pounds for almost a year-the most unhappy period of my life.”

Her daughter's reproach persuaded her to make changes. Around Valentine's Day 2006, her husband, Loveesh, bought her an elliptical trainer. She got on it every night and lost ten pounds in three weeks.