When it comes to losing weight, life is so not fair  

No matter what I do, I can’t lose. The guy and I have this horrible habit of hopping on the scale first thing every morning. We wake up, roll over, put our feet on the floor and head for the scale.

I step on very carefully, being careful not to lean too heavily, and wait for the digital numbers to flicker on. I’m thinking about what I ate the day before, how much I walked - or didn’t walk. The numbers appear.

Darn! I didn’t eat anything – well, the Snickers bar. But I walked - briskly – a block and a half to get it. I only had salad and a roll for dinner. And I walked thirty minutes. Briskly. So how come I didn’t lose? Same ol’ one-forty-five. Always one-forty-five. Him? He lost a half pound. Had a full dinner of shrimp and rice and vegetables and – no, he didn’t eat the roll.

An eternity ago I lost fifteen pounds and I’ve been stuck there ever since. He’s been losing steadily, half pound by half pound. It isn’t fair. He doesn’t walk a half hour a day. He doesn’t exercise. He says he just eats less. I say life’s not fair.

No matter what I don’t eat, no matter how much I walk briskly – you gotta walk briskly they say or it doesn’t count – no matter how many evenings I stomp stomp stomp on the treadmill, the scale doesn’t budge. I eat my lone enchilada sprinkled with lettuce while my guy enjoys a juicy steak fajita, refried beans, rice and a couple of corn tortillas.

Yay, I think. Tomorrow he’ll pay. Tomorrow I’ll lose; tomorrow he’ll gain. Tomorrow I gained – he lost. He says I snack a lot. Hey! I don’t snack a lot. If I’m hungry in the evening I eat an orange – so healthy. And a few peanuts, for the protein you know.

He was right. I stopped snacking. Mostly. I thought about this while I was walking briskly tonight. Been doing that for three weeks now; been really good about it. Hasn’t helped any, but if I don’t, I’ll sure as heck gain back those fifteen pounds I lost so long ago. Meanwhile, he’s sitting inside on the Lazy Boy recliner watching TV. And you know as well as I, tomorrow morning when we hop on the scale, I’ll gain a pound, or at best I won’t gain a pound, and he’ll lose another half a pound.

Our digital scale measures us by half pounds – the ol’ “point five” or “point zero” I call it and every “point five” counts, good or bad. Yesterday morning I weighed in at one-forty-five point zero for the umpteenth time. Sometimes if I take my shower, towel off and slather lotion all over and move the scale oh-so-slightly and carefully step on it a second time – I can lose the “point five,” I have to be careful because sometimes it adds another point five. Yesterday I lost it. I hollered out, “One-forty-four point five!” And he… well, you know he lost two pounds. Without cheating.

Life is not fair. Life is so not fair. I’ve tried eating what he eats. Problem is, when he says, “How about sharing a piece of pie?” I’ve just eaten a handful of peanuts and a banana and a really small snitch of that chocolate bar I brought home from work, so I tell him no thank you and feel ever so proud of myself and he settles back in his recliner and suddenly he’s holding out a delicious forkful of peaches and pastry, “Want some?” and I can’t resist and it’s only a small forkful and…

Life isn’t fair, but with a mouthful of peaches ’n pie crust, you gotta admit, it sure is enjoyable. I’ll deal with the scale in the morning.