So we’re planning a big beach vacation this summer. The whole extended family will be there. Well, not the whole entire extended family, but my parents and siblings and nieces and nephews. Our kids we be there too. You know what a beach vacation means, right? Yep-the dreaded swimsuit reveal. (Actually, it's not the revealing of the swimsuit that's horrifying, it's the body in the swimsuit that has me a little concerned.) As soon as I knew the dates, I marched myself right over to the kitchen calendar to find out how much time I had to lose some weight before hitting the sand. This is how it goes-- First, there’s the counting of the days—“OK— March has 31 days—add that to the 30 days in April, and you get 61. Add another 30 for May….” and so on. Eventually the total number of days till vacation is established. Then it’s time to divide by 7 to figure out how many weeks those days represent. Say it's 20 weeks. Now comes the fun part—“OK—so if I lose 1 pound a week, I could be down 20 pounds by the end of August! But what if I can only lose ½ a pound a week—that would only be 10 pounds. Well, that would still help a little, I guess....”
So what happens? OK--the truth--pretty soon I notice that I’m not losing a pound a week or even a measly ½ pound a week. I’m losing a big fat “nothing” a week. It's just too much of a drag to cut back on the food and feel lousy. But the image of stretching that swimsuit over this body and sashaying down to the beach comes into focus again, so we’re on to plan B—“OK—if I can lose 1 ½ pounds a week, I can still do all right in the time that's left.” Well, you know the story by now, don’t you? Maybe you’ve even lived it yourself. When that plan fails and not one ounce of weight has been lost, desperation starts to set in. Next thing you know it’s, “OK, I've got to get a move on —if I can do 2 pounds a week….” As the time slips away (like sand in an hourglass), the weekly weight loss goal has to keep increasing. It's 2 ½,lbs. then 3 and so on. What’s that you say? It’s pathetic? No kidding--tell me something I don’t know.
But I’m happy to report that this time it will be different. I’m ready to embrace the discomfort of feeling hungry. (And don’t let those “you won’t ever be hungry on our diet!” people fool you—it just doesn’t work that way for some of us. Self-denial and deprivation are the only functional tools in this girl’s arsenal. As a matter of fact, I’m hungry right now. But you know what I’m going to do? Brush my teeth and get in bed, that’s what. And when those hunger pangs start in on me when I’m lying in that bed trying to sleep, I’m going to think about how great it’s going to feel to slip on a swimsuit and run down to the beach shame free.
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