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Have you ever found yourself watching a typically riveting episode of Grey's Anatomy on Sunday night, and in between the prefrontal ice-pick stabs of the cold headache you've developed from pounding half a pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk, wondered exactly how star Ellen Pompeo maintains her exquisitely Zellwegerian figure? The answer to what makes the TV physician's white lab coat seem like a tarp thrown over a broom, it seems, is simpler than you ever dreamed. A high-level Defamer operative explains in a series of e-mails Friday night:

9:15 PM: Sitting at Lucky Devils on Hollywood and Cherokee. Ellen Pompeo just walked in. She looks pretty hot. I will tell you what she orders as it happens.

9:27PM: So far just a milkshake that she's sharing with her boyfriend. And by sharing, I mean letting him have it all.

9:46PM: It's the Hollywood actress moment I was waiting for. The three people with Pompeo at her table have all ordered cheeseburgers. Pompeo has ordered a big fat plate of nothing. That's right, there are three plates at the table, none of which are in front of Ellen. She's just sitting there watching her friends eat. And that's how you get cast on TV's number one show, boys and girls.

The Big Fat Plate of Nothing Diet may seem like a surefire route to the skeletal figure coveted by every girl with big Hollywood dreams, but not everyone has the self-discipline to adhere to it; one not only has to refrain from ordering their own meal, but must also resist the continual temptation to give in to one's body's selfish, career-killing demands for sustenance by diving across the table and seeking the sweet release of a mouthful of gourmet cheeseburger. If it were as easy as it sounds, everyone would have their own hit television show.