View from a Wolf

One of the highlights of each week involves crawling out of bed on Saturday morning, getting washed and dressed, avoiding breakfast, and heading on over to the local Jenny Craig outlet, there to visit with some of the city’s most beautiful women.  Getting weighed in is an added bonus.

This has been a routine for about five years now, I think.

In a previous incarnation (read: before five years ago), I was over 300 pounds.  I don’t know by how much, on account of I stopped checking once I hit the 300 mark.   I don’t think I ever managed to attain Beast level, which is 350 pounds.  I probably got pretty close though.

It’s a funny thing – when you’re not self-aware, you can miss so much.  Like the fact that I was not only fat, but my life was in danger.  I didn’t know I was fat.  I know that just as sure as I know that the last sentence doesn’t make any kind of logical sense.  In my mind’s eye, I was still the teenage boy who couldn’t get over 128 pounds.  Ever.  I remember looking in the mirror back then, breathing in, and being able to count my ribs.   I suppose semi-starvation will do that to you.

One day some nasty evil family member took a side photo of me, sitting at the dining room table with my family.   That wasn’t nice of them at all.  And then, to add insult to horror, they showed it to me.

And that’s when I knew I was fat.   I wasn’t overweight, stout, big-boned or obese.  I was friggin’ FAT.

I had to do something about it.

In looking around, I saw other friends who had become overweight.  I saw them start various starvation diets, and fad diets, lose weight and gain it all back again.

Then, when I was doing improvisational comedy, I met this beautiful blue-eyed blonde girl.  She saw my shyness and something clicked for her, so she made it a point to draw me into her crowd and we became friends.

I only learned about six months later that she had once been overweight too, and had gone to Jenny Craig.   When we met up for the first time, she had been out of the Jenny Craig program for two years, and had – obviously – kept the weight off.

That was good enough for me.   I joined.  I lost.  And lost, and am still losing.

Yes, it’s been five years, and I’ve gained a little back now and then but for the most part, the slide has been a very very slow slide downward.  They say that’s the best way to lose.  If you lose it gradually (just as you gained it gradually) you have a better chance of keeping it off.  I agree.

My Jenny Craig counselor is a gorgeous laughing brunette named Maria.     Every week she weighs me in, and then we sit down and talk about the previous week.

“What’s the plastic bag for?” she asked me.

“Um, well that’s something to have so that I can empty my pockets before getting weighed in.”  I then proceeded to put in my wallet, keys, change, iPhone, ebook reader, and everything else you can think of into it.

“Oh” she said, thinking.  “So that’s kind of like your purse, huh?”  Her blue eyes were twinkling, even though she kept a straight face.

I looked at her.   And then I smirked.   “No.  Get it right.  It’s not a purse.  It’s a murse.   A man-purse.”

She laughed.

One of the things we talk about is technology.  She is severely behind the times when it comes to the latest gadget, even though she thinks the iPhone is pretty neat.   I have counseled her about it, advising her when to buy, and what to get in terms of a data plan.

Last week as we sat in her office she said “guess what?  You’ll never guess what I got.”

I looked at her.  “An iPhone?”

She grinned.  “No.  An iPod thingy.”

I chuckled.  “You mean an iPod Touch?”

“YES!  That’s it!  An iPod Touch!”

I shook my head in disbelief.  “Maria, Maria.”

“What?”

“An iPod Touch?  Really?  Why didn’t you go all the way and get an iPhone?”

“Well I…”

“And what size did you get?  Tell me you got a 32-Gig model”

“No. I got a 16-Gig.  Why?”

I grinned.  “You know what this is like?  This is like you going on The Price is Right and having Bob Barker announce that you’ve just won a brand-new 2010 Chevy….windshield wiper”

She laughed.  “No.  I want to get an iPhone someday but the guy at the shop told me the timing is wrong.”

[Note: when she read this blog, she corrected me.  She actually got an 8-Gig iPod Touch.  I’m shaking my head sadly in shame over here]

We talked some more and then she weighed me in.   I had lost another pound.

When I lose weight, Maria likes to put a sticky on my record.  After doing the customary male pride rejection of that idea – and after she persisted anyway – I gave in (really, I didn’t have a chance – her and her idea were just both too cute).   Every time I lose weight now, she drags out that sticker book and announces that I’m getting another one.   It makes me smile every time.

When she got out the sticker book last week, I thought about our iPod Touch conversation.  “Hey can I pick out the sticker this week?”

She gave me the book.  “Sure!  Go ahead.”

I hunted around for a good one, struggled to get it out, and then, instead of placing it on my record I grabbed her arm and affixed it to the back of her hand.  “There.  That’s your prize for getting an iPod Touch.”

She laughed.

And you wonder why I like Saturdays so much.

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Hope you have a great weekend!