I put on eight pounds this past winter.
That doesn’t sound like a lot to me—believe me, I’ve done worse—but there are two things I should explain here. One, I say “winter,” but what I mean is “Since mid-February.” I’m averaging a pound a week (or really, two pounds a week during shamrock shake season, and a half a pound a week the other days). The other thing I should explain is that in my family—or specifically, on my mother’s side of the family—eight pounds will quickly turn to sixteen after CVS has one good sale on M&M "pounder" bags. I had to stop this calorie avalanche before it really took hold.
I hung my head in shame as I reached out to the one being who has consistently been my weight-loss advocate even when I threaten to smother her with my pasty arm flaps; my cheerleader even when I’m shouting colorful epithets; the only one who can listen to me liken the taste of cauliflower mashed potatoes to what I imagine Bigfoot’s rancid turds smell like, and still urge me to take another spoonful: my Weight Watchers points tracking app.
I didn’t want to open up the app, you realize. Even though I just said all those nice things about it, I actually kind of hate the Weight Watchers app. But I had no choice. Eight pounds is sixteen pounds.
My first day was okay. I loaded up on fruit and rice cakes, and grilled some chicken for dinner. I stayed within my points. But I was cranky.
Day two was harder. Work was stressful, and I had a ton of editing to do after I got home. I gamely stuffed Popchips in my mouth as I pawed through the Chicago Manual of Style to determine if it was ever acceptable to use a comma splice. I crunched another rice cake as I decided that it was not.
On day three, it hailed. In late April. Hail! Are you kidding? Then my computer crashed, and I lost all of the changes on the document I was editing. I stubbed my toe on an escalator. And a bird pooped on my car window, right in my line of vision. When I tried to clean it off, I discovered that my car was out of wiper fluid, and my wipers left a white smear all over the windshield. I used some of my flex points that night and ate an entire package of stale Peeps. I did not feel better.
The next morning, I woke up to a story rejection email waiting in my inbox. I’d had it. “I quit!” I shouted at my stupid points-tracking app. “Life is too hard for all this exercising and eating healthy nonsense!” But that Weight Watchers, she’s a clever girl. I never said you had to eat healthy, she reminded me gently. Just stay within your points.
This was . . . true. She might have encouraged me to eat more fruits and vegetables, but really, all she’d promised was that if I stayed within my points, I’d lose weight. I’d been the one who made it all about cauliflower and crap.
Day four: the day I discovered I could eat 160 Tootsie Roll Mini Chews in one day, and still lose weight. This dieting thing isn’t so hard after all.
That doesn’t sound like a lot to me—believe me, I’ve done worse—but there are two things I should explain here. One, I say “winter,” but what I mean is “Since mid-February.” I’m averaging a pound a week (or really, two pounds a week during shamrock shake season, and a half a pound a week the other days). The other thing I should explain is that in my family—or specifically, on my mother’s side of the family—eight pounds will quickly turn to sixteen after CVS has one good sale on M&M "pounder" bags. I had to stop this calorie avalanche before it really took hold.
I hung my head in shame as I reached out to the one being who has consistently been my weight-loss advocate even when I threaten to smother her with my pasty arm flaps; my cheerleader even when I’m shouting colorful epithets; the only one who can listen to me liken the taste of cauliflower mashed potatoes to what I imagine Bigfoot’s rancid turds smell like, and still urge me to take another spoonful: my Weight Watchers points tracking app.
I didn’t want to open up the app, you realize. Even though I just said all those nice things about it, I actually kind of hate the Weight Watchers app. But I had no choice. Eight pounds is sixteen pounds.
My first day was okay. I loaded up on fruit and rice cakes, and grilled some chicken for dinner. I stayed within my points. But I was cranky.
Day two was harder. Work was stressful, and I had a ton of editing to do after I got home. I gamely stuffed Popchips in my mouth as I pawed through the Chicago Manual of Style to determine if it was ever acceptable to use a comma splice. I crunched another rice cake as I decided that it was not.
On day three, it hailed. In late April. Hail! Are you kidding? Then my computer crashed, and I lost all of the changes on the document I was editing. I stubbed my toe on an escalator. And a bird pooped on my car window, right in my line of vision. When I tried to clean it off, I discovered that my car was out of wiper fluid, and my wipers left a white smear all over the windshield. I used some of my flex points that night and ate an entire package of stale Peeps. I did not feel better.
The next morning, I woke up to a story rejection email waiting in my inbox. I’d had it. “I quit!” I shouted at my stupid points-tracking app. “Life is too hard for all this exercising and eating healthy nonsense!” But that Weight Watchers, she’s a clever girl. I never said you had to eat healthy, she reminded me gently. Just stay within your points.
This was . . . true. She might have encouraged me to eat more fruits and vegetables, but really, all she’d promised was that if I stayed within my points, I’d lose weight. I’d been the one who made it all about cauliflower and crap.
Day four: the day I discovered I could eat 160 Tootsie Roll Mini Chews in one day, and still lose weight. This dieting thing isn’t so hard after all.
If you look closely, you can see my smiling face under all that chewy chocolaty goodness.
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