Hey, goomba! Are you on the Goomba Diet ? Do you need to be?

• Do they put up crime scene tape after you visit the buffet table?

• Is the air freshener in your car a slice of provolone?

Stop crying! The Goomba Diet is here—the dolce vita diet that shows you how to eat more, drink more, laugh more, live more, and feel great while you’re doing it. The Goomba Diet offers sensible weight-loss tips for the guy who’s gone too far:

• Touch your toes. If this is difficult, pay a guy to do it for you.

• Walk to court.

It also offers helpful maintenance tips for the goomba who’s the perfect weight and wants to stay that way:

• Try an appetite suppressant. Try eating at Applebee’s.

• Pick up something heavy. Get a copy of The Da Vinci Code .

• Cut out those carbs. Only eat pastas that end in the letter i.

The Goomba Diet is the personal lifestyle guide from Steven R. Schirripa—Bobby “Bacala” Baccalieri from HBO’s hit series The Sopranos and author of the bestseller A Goomba’s Guide to Life . Developed over decades of dreaming about and then living the high life, it’s a how-to guide for happy living—how to duke a maître d', how to order a good meal, how to be a good father, a good husband and a good friend, and how to behave at a wedding, a funeral, and on the job. You wanna have a good time? Follow these rules:

• Do tip the maid. Don’t tip the made guy.

• Do tip the D.J. Don’t tip the D.A.

• Do tell the bride she’s beautiful. Don’t tell her she’s hardly showing.

• Do give your kids an allowance. Don’t offer to “make it interesting” by shooting craps for double or nothing.

The Goomba Diet is for everyone with an appetite for life, and for everyone who understands that the key to happiness isn’t found in a smaller waistline but in a bigger heart. Like Steve says, “There’s a lot of skinny actors wearing black turtlenecks and tending bar right now who’d kill for a part on The Sopranos . This fat goomba is doing all right for himself.”

So relax! Stop worrying about how much you’re eating, and start worrying about how much you’re enjoying it. Lose weight if you like—but live ! Put a fork in your right hand, a hunk of bread in your left, and mangia like you mean it.

HBO® and The Sopranos ® are service marks of Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P.

From the Hardcover edition.