thick & thin.(Weight loss.)(Column)

Byline: Andre Leon Talley

It's my personal War and Peace, this weight-loss journey. I feel like Tolstoy's stoic Prince Andrey on those days when battle rages in my mind between a determination to stick to mindful eating and hard exercise and an urge to wave the white flag and let my legs give way under me.

Since I last reported to you, readers, from the Duke Diet & Fitness Center in North Carolina, I have lost sixteen pounds, making my four-month weight loss a

total of 44 pounds.

It has not been easy. But I have learned that I am not fighting alone, whether the day has seen a skirmish with an ab-crunch machine or a tussle with a hotel minibar. (Last week at a five-star resort I forgot to ask the staff to mine-sweep the minibar before I checked in; I dumped the entire contents out on the carpet, futilely hoping they'd be hastily removed by housekeeping.) In my war, there are field generals, there are colonels, there are relief squadrons.

What a joy it was to return home from Duke on April 4 and be able to slide into the elegant trousers of my Richard Anderson English suit! As I buttoned my double-breasted jacket, like Prince Andrey who shouted "Hurrah!" in the thick of battle, I shouted "Hallelujah!" in my bedroom.

UNITED WE STAND