Belt Tightening

A White House diet

At black-tie dinners, he has been known to flop to the floor, tuck his knees to his chest and roll from side to side. He jokes about one day posing with Jane Fonda, both in leotards, displaying the fitness of their sleek bodies. He has signed a contract to write a diet book in which he will explain in detail his theory that if you drink and eat at the same sitting, you get fat because the liquid washes away digestion-aiding enzymes in the mouth.

Some nutty faddist hoping to cash in on the national hunger for books that help you get thin? Well, not quite. The man with such readiness to demonstrate his exercise techniques (in addition to body rolls, he suggests two types of sit-ups), and with imminent publishing plans, is Michael Deaver, the normally discreet and least noticeable of President Reagan’s top aides. He recently lost 33 lbs. (from 183 lbs. on his 5-ft. 7-in. frame). He intends to reveal the details of his White House regimen for tightening belts, even as the federal deficit grows ever fatter, in a ghostwritten book to be published by Morrow in the spring. His 1,500 calories-a-day diet stresses apple juice, grains and little alcohol.

Deaver is serious about his desire to show “people who have desk jobs, like me, people who are sedentary, how they can get slim and stay slim forever.” The money must also have seemed tasty. Deaver, whose salary is $60,600 a year, was to get a $45,000 advance from the publisher. The bad news: the White House has a rule that no staff member can earn more than 15% of his salary a year from outside work. The good news: royalties are not covered by the rules. Deaver could yet end up in Fat City.