Dieting

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Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

So I am on a diet. I am actually not officially on a diet yet - that starts on Monday - I'm sort of on a starter diet. A trial diet. A diet that is condoned by the Watchers of Weight. Not WeightWatchers, mind - I'm too broke - but the Watchers of Weight, who are a group of dark clad ninja like svelte people who come into your house to torment you mercilessly about your giant fatness. Also, they snatch food from your plate and then laugh heartlessly as they eat it themselves. Then they tease you about your fat clothes. Fear them!

Not really, although it would have its serious awesome points. Speaking of points, what really happened is that a friend of my daughters loaned her a weight watchers calculator. We have decided to launch into counting points, as opposed to calories, obsessively and as a result becoming slim and scornful, not to mention better at math, our own selves. The point system is complex. You take the little calculator and you put in first the calories of the food you just ate (if you do it before you eat you will lose a whole lot more weight, but the misery will double, so it's a toss up) and then the fat content and then the fiber. The calculator then hands you back a point value, to wit, hot dogs are 7 points while blueberries are 1. Some things, like tomatoes, are free: they have no points. Alas, when you add toasted bread and bacon and mayonnaise and lettuce to tomatoes, they gain points. This is frustrating, since I only get 27 points a day. 27! They add up faster than you'd think.

Given the existence of points, I am postulating that there must therefore also be negative points. There must be a way, mathematically, to simply confuse the fat away. Presumably it would involve something that was more or less all fiber. What if I ate 3 cups of celery? Would I go into negative points? I need to go into negative points and soon, too. Those 27 points are not enough and besides, I'm getting obsessive. I've been counting blueberries to make sure I'm okay on the points front. There is little more depressing in this life, I find, than counting fucking blueberries.

Now, you do get overflow points and rather a lot of them: 35 a week! That would be awesome except I fully intend to save all mine up for binge drinking. There are only 2 points in a light beer, which means I can have 16 light beers and a PBR (3 points.) After doing that on a Saturday night, I should be sick for at least 3 days, which would further reduce my point intake and again, lead me into the much desired negative point status.

You can see I have thought this through. My brain has already been sharpened by starvation and there is no system I cannot beat. Look out, thin people! I"m coming to join you! Slowly. Oh, so very slowly.