Money for Nothin'

Makes a good song title, yes? Somebody should record it.

Anyway, GREAT NEWS today. My employer sent out a notice unveiling a new incentive plan for weight loss. For every pound a person loses after the first five, he or she will get five bucks! What a deal!! Weigh-in is next Monday with the final weigh-out the first week of May. I'm figuring I can drop about a hundred pounds by then, and let's see, 5 x 100 = 500!  Okay, not really. I mean if I dropped a hundred pounds I'm pretty sure I'd be dead, which makes money useless. I'm only five feet tall, I should probably weigh about 80 pounds!

Even if I don't make 500 bucks, I can still make enough to have a little spending money, and a few other people in the office are thinking the same thing. One of them is already puny, so at most she might drop ten pounds. The other is a substantial guy and he should be able to make a few bucks. So the three of us are a team now, there to encourage and monitor each other.

The strategy goes like this: Between now and weigh-in, we'll eat everything we want - chocolate cake, ice cream, burgers, wings, tacos, pasta and I could go on and on. We figure we can put on five pounds easily. On weigh-in day, we'll wear our heaviest clothes and jewelry, and lead-lined underwear. Then we'll weigh so much, the first five pounds will be easy. My boss insists that we've missed the point, but I don't get it.

Kiddin' again! We wouldn't do that, it would be wrong, it was just a naughty little exercise in imagination. We do plan to have burgers for lunch before the weigh-in, but that's as far as it goes. After that, we hope to encourage one another, and spend time walking during lunch or at least eating something healthy.

Behaving outside work may present more of a challenge. My husband doesn't cook anything without adding a spoonful of grease and a spoonful of sugar, just like his mom did/does. If I object, he just waits 'til I'm not looking and tosses it in! And I only cook things like enchiladas and lasagne, things with layers of fattening, artery clogging goo! So we need plan B.

I asked some friends for suggestions. I asked people who are slender, or who have lost weight, those who stay in shape and exercise regularly; the kind of people I'd like to smack senseless out of envy if they weren't so sweet and dazzling! And they delivered some great plans, suggestions and best of all, prayers! I love my friends!!

Unfortunately, nobody has a plan that includes unlimited chocolate or exercise that includes reaching all the way to the back of the refrigerator or opening and closing the cookies over and over again. The suggestions and tips range from the austere "egg and an apple a day" sort of things to the "just don't eat so much" and "get off your tail, you lazy gorilla."

You may wonder, how did Sal get so inflated? How did her normally normal horizon expand? I know, you thought it was the deep fried road kill didn't you? 

1. When I first moved here to the hills in March, I was alone in a motel, with a microwave until my family arrived in June. Alone... poor me, why don't I eat something and cheer myself up? Need I say more?

2. Being graceful and coordinated, one of my first memorable moves at the new job was to fall out of the van on a business trip, in front of my co-workers, boss and unidentified laughing people. I fell and rolled and landed with my feet in the air, very pretty indeed! Unfortunately, I tore a tendon in my right ankle. I was either in pain, on crutches, in a cast or otherwise down for the count until the end of summer. Begging and crying convinced the doctor to remove the cast while I went on vacation, but it went right back on when we got back. And the steroids! If you want to blow up like a balloon, steroids will do it!

3. Did I mention there's a fudge shop, ice cream store, candy store, and bakery all within hopping distance of my office? Try smelling freshly baked cones and see if you can walk on by...

4. I got old. My doctor explained that man only recently has been able to live so long, which means my body, technically speaking, should be dead by now, and it's programmed to conserve every last bit of energy to keep me alive in these ancient years. He said the only way to get past this round-like-an-apple-in-your-old-age-thing is to be VERY active. What can I do? I'm a reader. My laptop is practically a body part!

So, now you have all the facts, and if you have anything else to add in the way of inspiration or encouragement, please, by all means, share before Monday coming! 

Thank you, my Lovlies!

p.s. My family just baked cookies. See what I have to resist?