Yay! It's Time for My Physical!

UPDATE: The doctor was a little freaked out that I had lost 10 pounds in less than six weeks, but was willing let it go, for the time being, since I was happy about it and obviously had no other issues. However. If I lose another 5-10 in the next month I have to go back. Something about a scope to look at the lining of my stomach. If ever there were an incentive to eat . . . Sadly, I had to spit out a lovely salmon and avocado roll lost night because my stomach said, "Uh, no. I'm done for the night." Oh and, I didn't get out of having another mammogram Bah.


"Seriously?" you ask, "YAY?"

Yes! For the first time in waay too long, I'm going to hear a doctor say "You've lost a bit of weight since the last time you were here. Which was . . . not that long ago."

Nothing to explain. Nothing to test for. I'm not sick. I just inadvertently stumbled upon what a friend recently told me was the "ELF Diet (Eat Less Food)."

Sometime around the middle of July I just stopped wanting to eat. Even when I was hungry, I'd only be able to manage a few bites before feeling as though one morsel more would be throwing a gauntlet at the feet of the Vomit God.

People keep asking "Are you stressed?" to which I am forced to reply, "Do you even know me?"

I am a medium-beige skin suit wrapped around a compressed, person-shaped mound of stress, nerves, anxiety and irritation. Oh, and caffeine receptors.

In other words, yes. Yes I am stressed. But probably not out of my normal range.

This not eating went on for three weeks or so. I wasn't ever faint from hunger--well, maybe once or twice--so my body was obviously OK with the amount of food it was getting. And I was OK with the amount of extra room I found in my jeans.

And then, one day, the feeling sick part of it just went away and I discovered the truth in the saying that it takes 21 days to form a habit (look, Ma! 14 million results--it must be true! Now go and Bing it instead so you can whittle it down to a more manageable eight million). I eat smaller meals. I don't snack between meals. And in what some might see as a sign that I am seriously ill, I turned down chocolate cake at Pamplemousse.

But here's where the whole thing gets weird, though "obsessive" might be the better word choice.

I caught myself planning the outfit to wear to the doctor's office. Not to look hot or anything--I like my doctor but she's not really my type--but I was doing a mental weight comparison of certain pieces of clothing. And rather than simply tossing this idea and putting myself in time out, I changed clothes three times and weighed myself in each outfit. Yes. I. Did.

You know how the nurse always says it's OK to leave on the sweater, just take off the shoes because it doesn't make that much of a difference anyway? It's so not true. The jeans and t-shirt weighed 1.2 pounds more than the sundress. And when you have two kids and don't get to the gym as often as you should and the last nurse you saw said that no one liked the weigh-in, especially when they didn't feel good about themselves anyway, that 1.2 pounds is huge. I don't care that the number difference is all smoke and mirrors--I care that the number on the "permanent record" is as close as possible to what I actually weigh.

And once I cross that little psychological finish line I've set for myself, I'll probably have to stop by Pamplemousse for a slice of Chocolate Chocolate cake.

I only hope that the doctor won't make me get a mammogram this year. Little known (at least to men) secret of weight loss: The boobs are usually the first to go, making it that much harder to get a pretty picture in the Boob Smasher 3000. Details to come!

Lucky, lucky you!