Lie to Me?

Sometimes even Mom can't lie to save your feelings.

"I saw you on TV yesterday," Mom said to me the other day.

"What was I doing?" I knew what I was doing that got me on TV (covering a court case for the newspaper), what I meant was was I moving or standing still.

Is it only fat people who are obsessed with their exact position in video/photographic media? I'm no exception, in any case.

You know where this conversation is going, right?

"You were standing still ... " she said.

My mother is so observant, which makes her hesitation on my next question hard to figure.

"How did I look?"

Crickets could be heard. She stared at me wide-eyed. She took a puff off her Marlboro. The sun set and the moon rose. No words were spoken.

"Did I look really fat?"

Even the crickets didn't speak. Her face started to form a questioning look, but she must have thought better about pretending that she didn't hear or understand the question.

"I know, it's bad, I was the fattest person there," I said. Yes, the art of self depreciation is alive and well.

"Well, maybe you should try to lose some weight," she said.

And there it was.

Sometimes even Mom can't lie to save your feelings. Sometimes we just need to hear the truth.

Photo: Mom singing in the choir at church. She is a living saint, which is why she didn't lie.

Temptation Table

I attended a work luncheon today where they automatically serve you every course, including dessert. I was determined to tell the server NOT to give me any dessert because I had no intention of eating it.

The server thwarted me, however, by putting a big bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup at my spot while I was out of my seat working. I never knew ice cream could be so offensive. I swear it just stared at me.

So, while I listened intently to the speaker (ho hum), I stared back at that bowl of ice cream. I hated to see it wasted; I debated just taking a few quick bites - bites taken quickly do not contain as many calories - but I did not. I let that ice cream melt. Score one for me.

The situation spurred me to invent the game Temptation Table.
This is how the game works:

All day long I am confronted with food and dessert - some of it very enticing - my objective - to win the game - is done by choosing only reasonable amounts of the healthiest foods and leaving the rest alone. Points are scored by using a scale. The game, however, lasts an entire lifetime, which makes it pretty lame. I suggest playing it several times a day and not thinking about it never ending.

Lose the game and stay (or get) fat. Win the game and be thin and healthy. Wa-la.

Patent pending ;)

The photo (www.guardian.co.uk) is an artistic rendering of Star Wars character Jaba the Hut. Jaba should not have eaten so much ice cream. I bet he's really sorry now.

Resolved

I'm resolved to lose weight this year. You might think I was resolved to lose weight last year when I started this blog, but that was just the warm up. The prelude to a diet. This is the real diet. Now that I'm used to the idea, I think I can really make some progress.

Over the holidays I made it a point to eat as many cookies and pastries and chocolate delicacies that I could handle so I am now (almost) completely sick of them.

I am, however, mostly sick of talking about diet and exercise, though, to be honest, (obviously) I've never actually done much of either. It's all that darn Thinking about diet and exercise that has me plain exhausted. I feel like I should have accomplished something.

But, here it is, friends, my most sincere attempt ever to Really and truly lose all of the extra pounds I'm lugging around.

If I don't lose any weight you can make fun of me forever. "Remember when Rene wrote that blog about losing weight and didn't lose ANY weight - for like TWO YEARS? What a loser."
I promise I will sit back and take it and not move to defend myself at all, except for in my next blog tentatively titled, "How Rene Hates Her Phony Friends."

Photo caption: This little cockroach is determined, just like me. It is also representative of how cute I feel lately.