The Losers Club

And cold comfort

For years I’ve been saying I want to lose weight, but that’s not really true. What I want is for everyone else to gain weight until they’re roughly the same size as me. 

I want airlines to make their seats comfortable for all of us, for designers of clothes to design for the new normal, and for people designing the “plus-sized” tarps, shrouds, and knee-length-crotch pants to be thrown into a pit of stevia until they admit it tastes nothing like sugar, but just like the pesticide it is. They will be pulled out only once they are twitching and agree to wear polyester florals with large bows for the rest of their lives.

They will be buried in Spanx and an underwire bra. All of them.

Not that I’ve given this any thought.

Anyway, I have a magical metabolism, and I gain weight eating above about 1,500 calories a day. Not to rub this in anyone’s face, but come the next big comet, while the rest of you are perishing in dust-cloud dark starvation, the cockroaches and I will be sharing crumbs.

Another bite?

Oh god no, I can’t possibly. I had a crumb yesterday and I can barely fit in this hazmat suit.

I’ve tried all the usual plans, but I’m just not good at cults. Plus the pseudo-science is bad on the apps. Noom tries to pick fights with me. Not only are they wrong, they also chose a user interface and tone that assumes “happy moron” as the intellectual level of their user.

I’ve got it! We’ll make it flat and cartoon-like, dumb it down until it’s no longer accurate, and put lots! Of! Exclamation! Points! To show how much we’re cheering them on!

Great idea! But let’s also get juuuuust a subtle hint in there of failure. Maybe language like, “We get it - this isn’t for everyone” that implies it is, mostly, for everyone, and they’re a loser for not loving it.

YASSSSS.

Weight Watchers, recently rebranded WW because it’s now also a stroke test (Are you OK? Stick out your tongue. Say the name of the thing that used to be Weight Watchers? Somebody call 911!) is, I’m convinced, the recipe source of all those dishes people bring to that après service gathering at Catholic funerals.

At WW, you go into the meeting room and strip down, removing all clothing, jewelry, artificial limbs, and your IUD and pacemaker. Make sure windows are closed lest a breeze blow heavy air into your hair at the moment they read your weight. Step on the scale and either celebrate or mourn each eighth-pound increment. The rest of your week and your entire worth will depend on the results.

Then gather with others to talk about food. Not books, or nice places to walk or, I don’t know, C-4 explosive sculpting. Just food.

At WW things boil down to points. One is allotted a certain number of points per day, and, stupidly, the less one weighs the fewer points one gets. Lose enough weight, you reduce your point allotment per week. Much like scolding a dog every time he brings you the paper.

Recipes, therefore, focus on low point values rather than nutrition. This is where we get to the church food, because the only place I’ve seen food like they talk about at WW meetings is at those funerals.

If you make Deviled Eggs out of no-fat mayo, sugar-free relish, and sprinkle on Fakin’ Bacon bits and some paprika they’re so good, and only one point each!

I make pizza out of a slice of diet white bread, sugar-free-fat-free tomato sauce, fat-free shredded cheese and 5 ultra-thin slices of pepperoni. Only three points!

OMG, a tub of sugar-free Cool Whip mixed with a packet of sugar-free raspberry Jello, put into four parfait glasses and topped with blueberries is only four points each!

People share their recipes sitting in a circle, taking notes and encouraging each other. I stopped going after getting no support when I shared that on my points tier, you could have seven shots of bourbon and an apple in a day as long as you drank your coffee black and didn’t eat anything else.

My problem is I eat relatively small amounts of food, and I don’t really like junk food. I just hold onto calories like a Millennial holds a grudge, and don’t expend that energy like you doomed people do. For me, it’s all about watching calorie density.

In order to understand what I’m ingesting, I track what I eat with a food tracker. There are many, but the one that annoys me the least is Lose It. I also weigh myself daily because “suddenly gaining 40 pounds” is something I’ve done more than once.

The scale I use is a Withings, which connects to an app on my phone. I recently lost five pounds (not to worry, I’m sure I’ll find them again). Here is a quick internet search of things that weigh five pounds:

10 rolls of quarters.

A gallon of milk (only milk is used as an example on numerous sites, so I assume water and gasoline weigh something different. Also, a gallon of milk does not weigh 5 pounds, it weighs 8 pounds, but the internet wouldn’t lie to me.).

A Mexican cottontail rabbit.

2 Costco rotisserie chickens.

A large brick.

But this is not what Withings chose as an example of the bulk I am now free of.

Maybe they were shining a light on my victory.

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Morning Teaistisms

When will it get warm outside? When. Will. It. Get. Warm. Outsidddddde?

I need the weather to be warm now please.

Until then, I am finding comfort in some star anise chai with foamed milk, and some chocolates that one of the Things and She Things brought back from Switzerland.

One must suffer nobly.