theweightofthematter

Go back with me now to a time when we would lay on the bed and squeeze into our Bugle Boys. We sucked in our breath, held it just long enough to get the zipper up and then proceed to roll onto our side and stand up as if the tin man were a close relative. There was no chance of bending our knees for the first half hour. I know what your thinking� �I do that now, what do you mean I have to think back.� My dears, I am not talking about the size that you promised that you would never have the lack of discipline to get in to. That was the time we wore jeans so small on purpose. It made our rear ends stick out just right. There is no roll in front to stick out past your jeans when you have a 21 inch waist. Remember the shorts that hit above your knees and the tank top. Oh, Ode to the tank top. The days before clapping during a song did not make you cringe. You guys know what I am talking about!

Tell me if I am wrong my friends, when I say that we as homemakers, older citizens of this fine country (older meaning how you feel after children, not necessarily your age) we are a strategic sort. Everything is planned out to the final detail when it comes to dress. When we were waifs, we could close our eyes, spin two times and randomly pick an outfit out of the bureau and it would fit�comfortably. Now we must resort to our teenage years and try on everything in our closets. Unfortunately, this time it to eliminate the annoying garments that obviously shrunk in the dryer since last month instead of just being a maddeningly hard to please youth.

How did we wind up so, well, substantially filled out? I had a really hard session at agony class�I mean step class recently. I was standing in the back of the room, and I do mean standing during the class. I am the one in the back of the room with hands on the hips, looking down gasping for air.   I used pity women like me. I used to think� �How in the world does one let them self get like that?� Of course I wouldn�t miss a beat while I was effortlessly wisecracking with the perky instructor about the guy I got stuck in a blind date with that weekend. The instructor was on the 44th leg lift on our step routine, bouncing and making funny comments to the energetic young woman that used to be me while I stopped and made sure my leg was still attached to my hip. I was absolutely sure that it had removed itself after leg lift 39.   Now I know how that lady felt in the back of the class 10 years ago. God has a way of making us understand each other better, doesn�t He?

I know this does not apply to all of you. There are those of you that just melt at the thought of cheesecake, literally. You seem to loose those nasty unwanted pounds at the drop of a hat. You are the ones that weighed less after high school and college. Pregnancy and childbirth assisted in your weight loss the most. Breastfeeding made your breasts get bigger permanently and you rear shrank. What-ever!

As for the rest of us we need a weight-loss trading co-op for women that have nothing but one pair of blue jeans to wear every day. Blue jeans can be really dressed up or down with the top you elect to wear by the way. Some of you are not sure why we don�t just go out and pick up some charming new clothes in the size we need.   I will tell you why, the new perfect diet my girlfriend told me about while we were in the break room at work was going to be the answer to this weigh down problem. I WILL wear the clothes in my closet again. It is Thursday now and I have no intention of starting it until Monday though. The next few days will be filled with eating whatever I want because Monday we diet!

Can we talk about diets for a minute? Anybody notice that the first three letters of the word are D I E? Just wondering. This whole struggle with loosing weight after children and marriage has to be the most uncompromising, stubborn product of child bearing. That is of course except for the three year old that just innocently asked you �Are you going to have a baby, mommy?� while patting your belly. This is even with the shirt tucked out. You might be one of the lucky ones that can still hide the pooch with the overlap of your shirt and if you are, enjoy that phase.

Diets don�t work. We have heard that a million times and we still do it! We hear of the new diet on the most recent women�s magazine at the checkout counter and say to our self �That makes sense, that might work this time� and give the checker our ice cream money to try dieting one more time. Let me break it down, tell me if I am wrong, ok? You will read over the article and make a list of the exact ingredients the diet calls for, unless the magazine has provided that for you already. Some of them are becoming very generous with the information they are providing to make the transition to the diet lifestyle as easy as possible.   You go to the grocery store and begin the scavenger hunt for the ingredients in the diet. You are walking up and down the isle for potato water�yes, potato water. There is such a thing. You pick up no fat butter, fancy jelly because the recipes call for blackberry jam. They do not make blackberry jam in the economical brands, it only come in the 2 ounce gourmet jars. The jam is dropped in the cart as far away from the three year old sitting the cart trying to open the spaghetti. You head to the dairy section while separating the toddlers� teeth in the front seat from his sisters� fingers in the cart. This skirmish does not delay you of course because you are focused. You are on a mission and no amount of sibling rivalry is going to hinder your hunt for low fat food! The fat free sour cream and fat free cottage cheese are devotedly dropped in the cart and the exhilaration you are feeling at the prospect of getting back into those pre�everything jeans gets you pumped about this dieting regimen. The decision has been made to make the dinner that is required in this program for everyone tonight. This will be good for them too, and besides the recipe sounds promising, they won�t even realize it is good for them.   Dinner is almost done and the kitchen smells wonderful. There was absolutely no snacking during the preparation. You are a rock through the entire day. The final touches are added to the meal and placed on the table. Now ladies, tell me your husbands� first reaction. Say it with me...with the wrinkled nose please, �What�s that?� The rest goes down hill. The kids will not even eat it and if all were told, you didn�t really like it either. Am I right?

A week later, the no fat butter has not been touched since the third day of the diet and the blackberry jam is long gone because it takes more than a paper thin spread to taste real good on toast (with real butter). The potato water, fat free sour cream and fat free cottage cheese are still in the refrigerator a quarter full. Dinner ended up a major event because two meals had to be prepared each night. That did not last more than a week.   Eating habits are back to normal and are actually worse because the deprivation of any good food for the past week has driven you into binge eating of anything you can find that is not fat free. Lets just face this. We do not have to be pleasantly round forever. We are sure of that, but what do we do? Why can we not break free from this tremendous chain that is strapped to our body. Boy, I don�t know the answer, and I know it will never be easy. I do know this�we must stop bowing down to the food and trying to force the food to be right and take a good look at ourselves and get our hearts right about the food. Lets try to find the thing in this world that we love more than food, whatever that is for you and turn to it rather than the double chocolate chip cookies in the cupboard with whole milk. Come to think of it, that sounds really good. Um, I have to go.   Lets keep thinking about that co-op thing ok?

God Bless
Laura

Copyright 2001 Kingskid