The rigors of Ornish, reduced to seventeen syllables. Weight Watchers in three lines of enigmatic verse. The paradoxof Atkins-shed pounds while wolfing down cheese, eggs, and meat-distilled to a Zen-like utterance. Or call it the path to losing oneself, in the language of finding oneself. Inspired by a weight loss guru"s pithy sayings-Craving is the root of all suffering, Self-esteem = Sodium-Meredith Clair, an inveterate dieter, explores the connection between diet and haiku, eacha discipline that insists on cutting out excess, stripping down to the bare essentials, and counting, be it calories or syllables. The result is The Sound of One Thigh Clapping, a collection of tiny, hilarious moments in the epic journey to reach the Land of the Thin.