As the holiday season ended, Bertha Berger struggled to put on her blue jeans. She stepped on the bathroom scale and received the bad news. She had never seen such a high number on the little scale, so she resolved to change. That day she threw out all the junk food in her fridge and went grocery shopping. Determined to lose weight, she bought low-fat versions of all her favorite foods. She had a low-sodium bacon sandwich with a diet soda for lunch. The sandwich contained over 1,200 calories but had very little salt. For dinner she ate two turkey burgers with reduced-fat cheese. Though she had consumed over 2,000 calories, Bertha felt like she deserved a reward. So for dessert she ate two low-calorie ice-cream sandwiches. And before bed she ate a bag of baked potato chips, which she thought were healthier than normal chips, even though they had roughly the same amount of calories. She dipped them in low-fat cream cheese. Bertha had consumed around 6,500 calories that day, but she felt skinny. When she woke up the next morning, she stepped on the scale. She couldn't wait to see how successful her diet had been.
