The Punishment Continues

As if I wasn't being punished enough for my Ben & Jerry's addiction, the girls weren’t satisfied with just going to the gym. No, this intervention was to include dieting as well. They had joined Weight Watchers, which meant, I found out, that by proxy I had joined as well.

"Do you know how much I have invested in this?” I held my medicine ball gut out for display. I didn't need to push it out far as it already stuck out pretty good on its own. It was then that I discovered my Krispy Kreme money had gone to pay for my membership to the fitness center. That, to me, was a misappropriation of funds. Embezzling funds is a federal offense, right?

Watching the girls plan the week's menu was exercise in and of itself. They sat at the kitchen counter, paper and pen before them, cookbooks opened next to a calculator, mapping out breakfast, lunch and dinner. They would run back and forth from the kitchen to the computer, looking up calories, fats and grams. Meals were divided into points and each day you were allotted so many points and each week you got bonus points. I was eating a bag of potato chips while they practiced their arithmetic.

"If we have oatmeal for breakfast and a salad for lunch, we'll save enough points to have mashed potatoes with our steak," Teri said.

"With three points left over for popcorn while we watch a movie," Char added.

I was losing my appetite. They had just reduced the enjoyment of my meal to a math problem. I hated math. Was this how you lost weight? You made eating resemble school work? Come to think of it, I was scrawny in school, so perhaps there’s something to that line of thought.

The next morning I was weighed on a scale from a five and dime and had been found wanting. I could actually picture the girls looking down at me practicing their quotes from A Knight’s Tale.

“You have been weighed.”

“You have been measured.”

“You have been found wanting.”

What I wanted was a cheeseburger.

"You get 28 points a day," I was told. What in the world does that mean? I kept picturing the AT&T commercials with the round orange discs that were rollover minutes that the frugal mother hoarded. My future meal times seemed about as appetizing.

This dieting program did have an upside to it, however. The girls knew I wouldn't do it on my own. When it comes to fixing myself food I go for the quick and easiest route possible, which is why the drive-thru girl at McDonalds knows my name. So in order to make sure I participated without cheating, the girls laid every meal out for me. Cereal in a bowl, just add milk. Lunch in my lunch box with extra carrots and celery, which I discovered are zero points and I can eat all I want. Of course, why would I want to when I couldn't dip them in blue cheese dressing? And really, celery is only good for when you’re out of floss. They prepared dinner and set it before me. Easy and painless - it was also tasteless, but I stuck to it.

I had tossed my sodas and they had swapped my beer for that watered down stuff that says “Light” on the label. Of course, that never made sense to me. When I’m getting hammered the last thing on my mind is “Wait, how many calories are in the Coors?” I was, however, allowed all the coffee I wanted and since I am a two-pot-a-day guy this worked out well.

Before I knew it, I had lost fifteen pounds. The girls were so excited and to be honest, so was I. My Grinch belly was now slowly fading and I felt better, more energetic. That is, until they told me that losing weight meant my point system changed. I now was only allotted twenty-four points a day!

"What?” My stomach growled. I do well and they take even more food away from me? That's punishment, not reward.

I threw the carrots in the trash and grabbed a Twinkie.

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