Meg never admitted it to Paula. She even believed it when she said to her best friend that she was keeping steadfastly to her weight-loss diet.
Meg didn't count as dieting transgressions the quick snatches of leftovers or the pop-in-the-mouth bits of food that she was cooking for lunch or dinner. A the times she did her cheating, she was aware. But her awareness faded in the service of Meg wanting to be good and true to her weight-loss diet.
There was one dieting violation, though, that made Meg ashamed. It was her eating secretly late at night after her husband and children were sound asleep. This was a furtive act she kept from everyone, including her best friend and dieting companion, Paula. Meg would stealthily creep downstairs to the refrigerator and get herself a "sleep helper" late night snack. She turned down celery, carrots, and radishes, in favor of more substantial, filling kinds of food. When she was full, she'd come back upstairs, brush her teeth one last time, and then quietly slip back into bed.
There was no apparent reason why eating secretly late at night should be the source of shame while all the other gobbling, snatching, and little morsel popping had no affect. For these were Meg's forms of eating secretly too.
Paula, poor Paula, fell off her dieting routine time after time, dutifully reported her slips to Meg, and then got back on again. Paula believed her friend, and thought that Meg never faltered like she did. But Paula lost the weight, and Meg did not. In fact, some weeks and months Meg gained weight. Yet she insisted to her friend in all innocence that she didn't understand why she wasn't losing like Paula was.
The secret never came out. Paula was left to think that dieting works for some and not others. Meg got to keep her secret (and the weight).
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