Patience.

I'm down 15 lbs total.

And that's good.


But it's always about this point in the process where I begin to get impatient. The water weight is gone, so there are no more five to seven pound weeks. Now, it's down to the real work.


It's also this point in the process when I begin to consider all the strange "tricks" used to lose weight. Here's a few I've tried, unsuccessfully, in the past:

• Pills. You name them, I've probably tried them. Most of them just made me feel like I was vibrating all the time and prevented me from stringing together a coherent sentence. Since I have trouble with both of these skills WITHOUT the use of pills, I promptly discontinued their use.
• Severe calorie restriction. I have tried this in various incarnations since age five, when, along with my two year old sister, I wrote my first "diet plan." My mother keeps this document in her memory chest, and one of my sisters was kind enough to read it aloud at my high school graduation party. It begins with the line "Only 1 mayonnaise sandwich per day." I'm not sure that qualifies as "severe" calorie restriction, but the framework for later starvation diets was clearly in place. Needless to say, this technique was unhealthy, and it usually only worked until I caught sight of a doughnut or chocolate cake.
• Giving up ALL bread products. Mike and I did well on the Atkins diet for about a month. At that point, I found myself seriously considering vehicular homicide on a woman I saw walking down the sidewalk with a loaf of bread. Thankfully, I remained rational enough to keep the car on the road, but I decided this probably wasn't a healthy approach, either.
• Fiber laxatives and over-the-counter diuretics. I'll leave this one to your imagination, which can't possibly be as bad as the reality.
• Strange exercise techniques. I've tried all the CURVES equipment, some of which I believe must be designed by orthopedic surgeons trying to drum up business. I've tried the Gazelle Freestyle, on which I resembled, much more closely, a seizing moose than a graceful gazelle. The Thighmaster very nearly resulted in an involuntary tubal ligation, and, since this was before I married and had children, I discontinued its use. (Hmm. Perhaps I should think about that one again.) The AbWorks, the NordicTrack, the Big-Ass-Rubber-Ball that, only later, I realized doubled as a device women can torture to relieve the pain of contractions during childbirth. The exercise "bands" which, luckily, did NOT result in my loss of one or both eyes. Step aerobics. Sweatin' to the Oldies. Jane Fonda. (I have a trunk full of aerobics videos, each one of which helped me produce at least one self-inflicted injury. I'm still healing, psychologically, from the Richard Simmonds era.)
• Strange clothing. Rubber suits (I actually still use this every once in a while, so I guess old habits die hard, but, yes, it is as ridiculous as it sounds.). Spandex in every possible format. I once actually had a doctor ask if I was "abusing myself" after witnessing the resulting chaffing. While I do consider full body girdles (along with panty-hose, rogue under wires, ALL corsets, and high heels) to be the clearest example of modern masochistic torture devices, I was still a bit uncomfortable trying to defend my own mental health to my concerned physician.

This time I think I'll just try patience. A balanced diet and patience.

I'm trying to stay focused on the fact that it took me 34 years to get to this point, so it's going to take me some time to get to a healthy weight.

At this rate, by the time I turn 70, I'll be HOT.

Do they run beauty contests in nursing homes??