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From the perspective of maintaining waistline, the true indicator of male fitness, travel is evil. In Florence how could Mr. Henry NOT try the roast hare and wild boar at Il Latini?

How could he forego the fried artichokes and zucchini flowers at Cammillo? Should he have skipped the pizza in Rome? Skipped the quickly roasted chicory and taleggio at Taverna Fiammetta off the Piazza Navona?

Should he NOT have tried each and every gelato flavor at the Gelateria del Teatro on the via dei Coronari? Should Mr. Henry take vows, renounce all worldly pleasure, seek satisfaction only in the hereafter, and sulk alone in his upstairs garret?

Yes. Because Mr. Henry has grown thick, beefy, almost fat. Little Henry has been taking huge delight in chucking his chins and daring him to wriggle into that Speedo over at the JCC pool. Ice cream, previously relegated to the list of foods favored by the morally craven, has become a hideous obsession. He reaches for it even after breakfast. Without turning to spiritual guidance, 12-step programs, or other superstitious behaviors such as ph-balancing or an all-meat diet, is there no way he can regain the true path?

Facing his summer wardrobe, he trembles, not least because Mrs. Henry may not countenance another mad shopping spree at Patagonia. (Mr. Henry imagines himself surfing pipelines on Hawaii’s south coast, afterwards donning slouchy trousers for their insouciant slacker-headed drape rather than for their abundant “relaxed-fit” seat.)

His sense of self, his inner cool, the requisite confidence for continuing his career path, indeed his entire future depends upon regaining that athletic form he had only two short weeks ago, before Italy, before pasta, before caky white breakfasts and crunchy white breads.

On the tenth day of debauchery in Italy, after a shameless pig-out at Il Latini where he quaffed two carafes of vino da tavola and two glasses of complimentary vin santo, Mr. Henry’s liver went into serious crisis. The next morning on his birthday (one he shares with Olivia) he staggered green with bile along the streets of Florence. Mr. Henry’s liver and Mr. Henry’s American Express card, appropriately positioned in his jacket pocket directly over that benighted organ, throbbed in unison. Dinner for five without wine at a fine but not exceptional restaurant, one much less exciting that the average Manhattan eatery, cost three hundred dollars. Porca Miseria!

But before panic takes hold, Mr. Henry must remind himself that his torso swells each year in spring. He is fighting off a Florentine flu, and extra carbs help keep his energy up. Also, markets don’t offer much fresh produce these days. Wherever lies the blame, Mr. Henry must remember that he is not a victim of the seasons. His own mental rigor will overcome the seductions of Italy. He is made of stronger stuff, even if that stuff feels slightly soft around the middle.

For those who simply can no longer appear publicly in a bathing suit, summertime is not a season for simple pleasures. For that subset whose incomes permit a weeklong stay at $1,000 per night and who seek extreme privacy, self-indulgence, a hint of lost aristocracy, and sprightly, trim servants at every corner, however, The Canyon Ranch is their Shangri-La.

Snugly nestled in the gentle, green Berkshires, The Canyon Ranch at Lenox, Massachusetts, is the modern American sanatorium, the 21st century replacement for Bath, Marienbad, and Baden-Baden.

The Canyon Ranch does not accept casual drop-ins, stays of fewer than three nights, or dinner reservations from those not staying at the spa. How Mr. Henry managed to slip inside the compound’s lofty stone gates may be the subject of a future post, but not this one. Let him merely relate that on a recent afternoon he found himself in the pool-house men’s room furtively wriggling into his Speedo long-legged racers (chosen not for their Olympic provenance but because when he wears the scanty Speedo classic racer, other Henry family members roll their eyes, point, hoot, and in general behave with the scantiest appreciation for Mr. Henry’s delicate dignity).

After a delightful swim all to themselves in a mammoth pool, Mr. and Mrs. Henry repaired back to the bathrooms to throw on long trousers and to await the promised 4-star, low-cal, modern scientific dinner. For those of you currently searching for an exciting way to disinherit your progeny, look elsewhere. Though the swim was delightful, the dinner was a bore.

For starters, alcohol is not served at The Canyon Ranch, red wine’s vaunted salutary effects on the cardio-vascular system notwithstanding. The compound is drier than south Utah. Since guests, glassy-eyed from an afternoon massage or lecture on the large intestine, are shuffling around in their comfortable clothes, i.e. fat pants, and since they are annoyed and hungry from the small portions served by hectoring Ranch menu experts, the mood in the dining rooms is decidedly downbeat.

Joylessness, in fact, seems to pervade the place. Because they are on their feet working all day, the staff are fit and perky. The guests, on the other hand, are uniformly dumpy and glum, each over-indulged face fixed in a sulk from denial of its customary hourly stuffing. In the Holiday-Inn style corridors they do not speak. At each brush past a chaise longue amply filled with another terrycloth-robed New Yorker, they avoid eye contact. Is this the way mental hospitals feel?

As a sanatorium, The Canyon Ranch must be judged a success, and a success as a fat farm for the super-rich, too. But as a health spa it fails.

From a choice of six entrées, two were white pasta. (Clearly, the executive chef has not read Mr. Henry’s Dietary Dicta.) Mr. Henry’s smoked trout served on leaden mashed potatoes was dry and fusty. Mrs. Henry’s curried garbanzo beans served on a thimbleful of soggy rice were over-spiced. Salad dressings were exceptionally uninspired, heavily dependent on a not-very-good oil of unascertainable origin. Vegetables were slathered in the same oil in lieu of a fine Tuscan extra virgin, a glaze of veal stock, or good, old-fashioned, tasty butter. The only choices of vegetable, by the way, were spinach or (are you ready?) edamame -– an utterly inappropriate side dish because they are eaten with the fingers. Dessert presented the thorny dilemma of choosing ice milk or sherbet. Service was rushed and faltering, more New Jersey diner than Old World restaurant.

Sweet was the evening’s single flavor theme, a scandalous absence of food awareness completely consistent with bad middle-American eating habits and completely inconsistent with sustained slimness.

Just before he committed some serious breach of etiquette, Mr. Henry grabbed his faithful consort and sprinted for the car. In half an hour he was embracing a draught Guinness in the basement of The Red Lion Inn, Stockbridge, MA, listening to a pleasant imitation of James Taylor, and enjoying the scuffed, quirky, Yankee authenticity of it all. Though the hallways creak, the beds do not.

At breakfast in the lovely old Dining Room, The Red Lion serves the finest oatmeal imaginable, accompanied by a maple syrup that actually contained a goodly modicum of boiled tree sap.