Money Well Spent

It all started when I reached 200 pounds.  That might not seem like a lot, but at 4’10” tall, it really was.

At the time, I was still in debt to my parents, still in debt to my GMC for my car.  I was working as a long-term temp, which meant I didn’t enjoy the same benefits or sense of security that comes with full-time employment. 

Despite my financial situation I knew my medical situation was just as important, and, after seeing my weight start with a “2” the first time, I thought it might even be more important.

I tried dieting on my own, but I was too out-of-shape to exercise much and I found I wasn’t changing my eating habits all that much.  Instead of eating an entire bag of Doritos, I would eat one serving, true; however, I still wasn’t eating vegetables.

So I signed up for a diet program and they gave me a piece of paper where I would write down everything I ate and three times a week I brought it to them and they looked at it and said “you need to eat fruit” and “try adding in any vegetable at all besides green beans.  Here’s a list of 50.  Certainly you can find one you like?”   Helpful tips like that.

It wasn’t a wide open food diary; it was fill-in-the-blank.  Vegetable:  _____   Carb: ________  Even my 10 glasses of water: ___   ____   ____  ___   Well you get the idea.

This plan worked.  Weight came off. Vegetables were consumed.  I paid through the nose for that photocopied piece of paper week after week, but it got results.

I moved away when I was offered full-time “permanent” employment, and I was no longer being given my little piece of paper.  I thought that would be OK, since by then I knew the rules and kept lettuce and green peppers on hand.  I even ate grapefruit without making too sour of a face.

When the weight started creeping back on, I made my own piece of paper.  It looked just like the expensive one, but did not have the same magical ability and the weight did not stop creeping up.

For a time I tried enlisting my boyfriend to be the tough guy and demand to see the piece of paper filled out weekly.  Unfortunately he’s not a tough guy and I don’t like people telling me what to eat. Heh.  So that failed.

The problem, I decided, was that since I no longer carried a whole folder around, I left the piece of paper at home and I didn’t carry it with me, and so it never got filled out.

On a whim, then, I spent $15 on the DietMinders Journal.  It was a book I could carry everywhere, not a single sheet of paper that would crumple.  It was heavy and too in-depth and I didn’t like having to THINK so much every time I ate.  I believe I filled out a day and a half of that journal. 

When I got an IPod my first “app” was a nutrition program that let me tap in my food for the day and it told me my calories.  This I kept up with for several months, actually . . . until I realized it wasn’t actually effecting my eating choices or having any impact on my weight.

Sometime after that came two books by Jillian Michaels, a pedometer, several DVDs and The Biggest Loser’s “6 weeks to a Healthier You.”   It’s been 6 months and I am still on chapter two of that one.

At some point came the calorie count book.  Not a little one, a GOOD one.  It’s double the size of my thesaurus.

I knew all the gimmicks were a waste of money so next came a lovely Moleskine journal which would let me track my eating AND my life.  Too bad it’s dated because it’s already out-dated.

The visits to the dieticians each led to packets of papers and lists of tips and tricks to try and the online community has led to 6 emails a day.

These all cost too much money to just be tossed away, so they fill a file cabinet drawer, along with the Weight Watcher’s points program guide my best friend sent me after she had success with it and the “Great American Slim-Down” plan I wisely purchased from Larry North’s late night infomercial back on college.   They’ve been lugged from apartment to house and they’ve been displaced and piled and set on shelves and in cabinets and tossed on the floor.  They’ve rarely been opened and they take up space I could fill with things I like.  Giving them up, though, seems like acceptance of the 200lb person I didn’t want to be and don’t want to be again.  Tossing them away feels like accepting the medical and life issues that let the contented person of 130lb wake up one day back at 170.

It all ended, though, with my latest purchase.

Trust me.

It’s slim, it’s simple.  It fits in my pocket.  I keep my calorie counts in it and add them up.  I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now, every day.

It’s a calendar I got at Target.

It cost me 50 cents.

I’ve lost 7 pounds.   In two weeks.  After four months of 8 hours or more at the gym each week and losing NO weight.

I’m eyeing that drawer and wondering if it’s time to say goodbye to what probably adds up to a week’s pay.