I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I lost one hundred pounds. The bad news is it's the same twenty-five pounds for the fourth time.
Looking at me you wouldn't believe that I was an extremely thin adolescent - not to say that I set off the electronic eye of the door at Shop Rite, just by standing in the parking lot. I'm not that huge. I've got a little spare tire. Unfortunately, it's not a bicycle tire; it's more in the line of something that would go on a piece of John Deere equipment.
I was very skinny in high school. How skinny was I? Why, I was so skinny, if I turned sideways and stuck out my tongue, I'd look like a zipper. Yes, I heard them all. If I walked into a pool room, somebody would chalk my head. If I had red hair, I'd look like a match. I was so skinny; I had to run around the shower to get wet. High school kids could be really cruel. I didn't mind though, because I was making fun of the fat kids.
Then, something happened. I discovered food. Food, up until then, had just been an excuse to sit at the table and hit my father up for ten dollars.
As I grew older, into my twenties, I began noticing how my pants would take an enormous inhale to get buttoned. I kept thinking the cleaners were shrinking them. Then, one day, I inhaled, buttoned my pants and exhaled. My button broke a window, put out my neighbor's eye and was last seen orbiting Mercury.
That's when I made the startling revelation that I must have put on some weight. There were two solutions to this problem: (1) Go on a diet, or (2) buy bigger clothes. I opted for solution #2. After all, I was relatively young. There was plenty of time to go on a diet.
I kept opting for solution #2 every time one of my pants buttons would seriously disable a family member, or an heirloom would find itself the latest target as a result of my gluttony.
The awful truth came while I was staying at a Ramada Inn in Cape Coral, Florida. When I stepped out of a steam filled shower, I caught a glimpse of myself, naked, in a full length mirror. If you ever wonder if you need to go on a diet, try looking at yourself in a full length mirror, naked. It's not a pretty sight. There I was, in the mirror, the same person I was making fun of in high school. I had come full circle. Actually, I looked like a full circle.
I knew the time had come to start dieting, but what diet? I tried the Stillman, eight glasses of water a day, diet, but then I developed a new problem...bedwetting.
I tried exercising. I bought one of those Fonda workout tapes...not Jane, Henry. (It's an extremely low impact workout.)
Nothing worked. The more I tried to lose, the more frustrated I would get. I would go to a restaurant and order the diet platter and a side of lasagna.
I didn't want to join one of those “groups”, because all they talk about is their diet, even when they are around non-members. (“I had the most delicious tuna shake today. Tomorrow, I'm going to try the collard greens flavor.”)
Then it came to me. How about eating the foods I like, but not in hippopotamus portions? Could the solution be this easy? Or, am I just fooling myself?
I have taken a vow to lose this weight, once and for all. (I swore on Jenny Craig's stretch marks.) I only have nine pounds to go. So far, the battle of the bulge has been successful and all remaining heirlooms are intact.
