Fat Chance

As Americans throw themselves body, soul and pocketbook into the latest weight-loss craze, Maggie O'Leary's informed column about the pitfalls of dieting is the one sane voice crying out against the dietocracy. Plus-size Maggie, also known as America's Anti-Diet Sweetheart, is perfectly happy with who she is and the life she leads. Until she gets a call from Hollywood's most enticing bachelor, Mike Taylor. At first, Maggie thinks the call is one big joke put on by a particularly obnoxious colleague. But when Maggie learns that Taylor is the real enchilada and that he truly does need her to come out to Hollywood to help him on an upcoming film about a diet doctor, she's in a pickle. Maggie can't possibly turn down this opportunity of a lifetime, but she can't exactly go to Hollywood looking like...well, herself. Swearing her trusted assistant to silence, Maggie embarks on a "secret" makeover. From showdowns with her boss, who suspects his star columnist is losing her edge -- er, girth -- and sends her Italian pastries to sabotage her efforts, to run-ins with her closest male friend, from walking through the famed red door of beauty to winding up on the wrong side of a positively lethal Elliptical trainer, the newly svelte Maggie finds herself navigating a new course. Full of doubts about abandoning the comfortable life she's known -- not to mention deceiving legions of loyal readers who still think of her as their champion -- L.A.-bound Maggie is hell-bent on living out her most tantalizing fantasies! - Deborah Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and nutritionist who now divides her time between writing children's books and adult novels. She has been a regular contributor to The New York Times (including four years as the Sunday New York Times Magazine beauty columnist), and a home design columnist for Long Island Newsday. Her health, fitness, beauty, travel, and feature stories have appeared widely in many other newspapers and national magazines including New York's Daily News, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Woman's Day, Family Circle, Self, and Vogue. Blumenthal lives in New York City.