The Weight Game

The thing with a sponsor is that you're supposed to call them before you do the bad thing. My sister and I act as each other's food sponsor, except contrary to tradition, we call each other after the bad thing has been done.

"I ate a BLT chicken sandwich from McDonalds...with the crispy chicken and fries. And a Diet Coke."

"Yeah, I hear ya', sister, I crawled my way through dust and sick children and toys and one very big black Labrador to get at the Doritos. The Extra Cheesy kind."

"One small dish won't hurt you."

"Who said it was one small dish? We're talking a half-bag...of the Family Size."

"Ahhh...a Sam's Club special."

"That's the one."

"Just say no, the next time you want to get into the bag."

"And for you...just don't order fries. At least you ordered a diet coke with lunch and not a chocolate shake. Oh wait...did you mooch off M's shake?"

"Two sips."

"Penance...we work it off this afternoon. You take the dog, I’ll bike ride with Izzy in the carrier."

"We can’t – AH has microplasmic pneumonia and M has strep throat. Maybe I'll wait for the boys to come home from school then go. After the homework. After A's inevitable breakdown over some transgression by J."

"Okay, tomorrow we exercise. What are you making for dinner?"

"Hamburgers."

"Sounds good. Maybe I'll take a quick spin to the market. Get some blue cheese - always good on burgers."

"Hmmm...reminds me. I should stock up on the ice cream. The kids are going through it now that it's hot."

We'll have to change our system.

Disclaimer: I'm exaggerating the subject of our conversation. Actually, my sister and I have been on a mission to filter out the junk food from our diet. We have a good jumping point - our kids have always snacked on vegetables: cucumbers, tomatoes, red cabbage, and salad. They do have a weakness however to grab chips when they're starved (and so do I). They've learned the guilty pleasure of eating chips out of the bag while in front of the T.V. I've tried to change the habit by making them use a Tupperware cereal bowl for chips instead. M and A are pretty good at that - J rejects the method. We're also working on dropping the sodas, preferring low-fat milk or natural juice. A has been good about it, so has M, J rejects the shift, always pulling out a soda or two. Now, I could simply not buy the bad stuff, but I've always been an advocate of moderation not abstinence, believing that absence makes the heart grow fonder. So we're trying to work with less rather than none.

For me...I've been all right about the adjustment but not over the past week thanks to A's birthday party. D brought many bags of chips much to the delight of my happy junk-food-eating-self. We had left-overs! My problems date back to being a skinny teenager and young adult. I could eat anything without gaining weight. When I got married at a young 26, I weighed 125. Then I had my first child and things have never been the same. The third child just pushed me over the fence, you know? Now...145. I can't seem to go below 140. Sometimes I'll drop to 138...but that doesn't last long. And that's all with decent eating.

Another difficulty is the exercise thing. In truth, I'm not committed to exercise because I don't like to exercise. The only thing I enjoy is bike riding and that's a rarity because it requires that I leave the house alone for more than an hour and I really can't do that all too often, not with my battling, challenging darlings of my life. I'm hoping to pick up the riding again next week when there's no homework, when D's home, when we're not up to our ears in junk food leftovers.

As a note, I have been trying high-energy yoga. That's not too bad. When I can get to it.

Back to food. Part of the trouble is that food's meaning has changed for me, as I've mentioned before. When I was younger, food served two purposes: (1) prevented death by starvation; (2) served as the centerpiece to social interaction. Today, I look to food for comfort, as a reward after a hard-day's work, as entertainment, as something very pleasurable, for social interactions, and...to prevent death by starvation. The role of food has so expanded in my life that I turn to it far more often than before which...increases the inches and pounds and...

So I cry. I cry over my inability to gain control over what clearly is a problem. Some say, 145 isn't bad! Better than 175! Or 200! Yeah...but it's not good, not for me, not with my...er...curvaceous tendencies. My 145 tends to look like 160.

I’m whining, aren’t I? Whining and doing nothing to resolve the issue.

I’m writing this with a Diet Coke to my side, sitting. Wishing I smoked. ‘Cause cigarette smoking cuts down in the calorie intake. Maybe I should order those diet foods advertised on T.V. with the free week of foods delivered to my door? Or the diet supplements or the diet pills that make people go from pudgy to six-pack abs in mere weeks? Or get that workout machine for only $69.95 a month for five years!

Well, I should go. I need to order pizzas for tonight for the kids and their friends.