Photo by smcgee
Despite the Lean Cuisines I eat for lunch and the miles on the treadmill, nary a pound has budged. I’m not going to fool myself and blame my metabolism, though. It’s my brain that’s making my butt big. Here’s some of the extremely ineffectual things I catch myself thinking about food and weight loss:
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1. Grocery shopping counts as exercise. Granted, some stores are as big as Maui. Still, pushing around a cart and filling it up with stuff, however healthy, doesn’t really count for much. Especially when you get “just one” candy bar and eat it immediately after shopping.
2. Telling myself, “I’ll never eat again!” Unfortunately, the morning after binging on chips and queso is not the same as the morning after you have had crazed sex with a hot, anonymous stranger or drank five Long Island iced teas (or perhaps both). You can’t just swear off eating like you can drinking. Trust me on this one, I’ve tried. My resolve usually weakens around 10 o’clock.
3. I’ll have “just a bite.” Usually, the bite is of something like Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake. One bite of that stuff has like a zillion calories. Anyway, who can have just one bite?
4. Counting on the energy crisis as a fallback diet plan. At work, we talk a lot about what will happen if food prices rise too much. We talk about the gardens we’ll plant as we nibble at the frosting on the birthday cake left over from last week. I imagine what my body will look like once I’ve eaten zucchini for about six months.
5. Telling myself I’ll get the child’s plate. I did this today at a Mexican restaurant. The child’s plate was considerately served with a huge basket of chips. The food on the plate looked like it would feed a 450 pound child. Maybe it has something to do with living in Texas, where everything, including the people, is bigger. I dunno.
Sometimes I figure the only way I’ll lose weight is if I travel to a 3rd world country and get thrown in jail as a political prisoner or something. Then, after a couple of years, I would be released from prison with much fanfare, and my emaciated (but fashionable) body would be in all of the newspapers.
Ha ha. I have a recurring fantasy that I’ll be at a local park, get “lost” in the woods, and wander around for a few weeks eating berries, mushrooms, and drinking water from a natural stream. I’ll keep my teeth clean by chewing on tree bark. At the end of it all I eventually find my car, drive home, and happily discover that I’ve lost a ton of weight. Sure, I may have ticks in my matted hair and my unshaved legs might rival those of Bigfoot’s sister, but doggone it, I’ll look mahvelous!
What a coincidence! MY fantasy has always involved Chanya getting lost in a park and eating berries, etc..
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@Chanya: Actually, according to the boys in 7th grade, I may be Bigfoot’s sister. You know, 6′ and size 11’s…
#3 is my big problem I think. I’m pretty good with the other four.
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I don’t want to lose weight. I got on the scale at the dr. a couple weeks ago and I about died. I am about 40 pounds over what I weighed when I met my husband. Note I said about 40 pounds, I lift weights and exercise faithfully. I also have a pretty good shape, not just for a woman who has 5 kids, I actually look pretty decent for a woman in general because I exercise. I started to think about it and look at pics of Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston, ladies only a few years older then me and they look scary. I don’t want to look starved for food at 40. It looks crappy, I want to look like Marilyn Monroe or Sophia Lauren. So I told my husband I don’t give a crap about my weight anymore and he said good, cause I like you better this way. I mean can you imagine what Paris Hilton is going to look like at 40 or 50- that girl needs a snickers bar and some beef jerky between meals.
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I lost 50+ pounds in 2007 (on a 5′3.5″ frame) and what did it for me was finally getting sick and tired of seeing my double-chins flapping about the place. I think once the key gets turned on in your mind that “this is IT!” it gets much easier.
Data points,
Barbara
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I have to disagree about the shopping cart one though. I just got back from two hours of grocery shopping and my legs are killing me. Of course I had two big things of cat litter and three twelve packs of soda that I pushed around the whole time.
And lifting those items. While it isn’t the same as actual organized exercise it does count as healthy movement. Some people sit when they grocery shop on those little carts…and you know if they stopped sitting and tried walking once in awhile they wouldn’t have to use those electric carts. 
My biggest challenge is avoiding sugar and the icky hydrogenated oils. They’re practically everywhere!
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