Weighing in

All my life I have struggled with my weight. I’ve been on diets, joined gyms, bought exercise equipment and consumed disgusting liquids, all with the hope of attaining some golden number on the scale.

These days the number on my scale bounces around a lot - while I’m standing on it. This is because I’ve kicked it into the wall a few times too many and it’s not exactly in the best shape

I have a pretty good idea of what I weigh, hence the ritualistic ‘kicking of the scale’ and it’s too damn much. I no longer reward a two pound loss with a box of Twinkies, but it hardly seems to matter. I have parked myself in a fat suit and am uncomfortable living in my own skin.

I know that the only way to fix this is through exercise - and lots of it. But I’m so embarrassed being in public (let alone attempting to move quickly while other people are watching) that it’s hard to get started again. I bought a bicycle and rode it to work for about a week, but I was ashamed to be seen peddling and sweating in commuter traffic. I keep it in my house next to front door. It makes a unique coat rack. I bought some weights and keep them in the living room as a visual reminder to use them, but after tripping over them so often I’ve developed animosity toward them. They are now “out of sight, out of mind”. I have a brand new mini-trampoline that sits in the middle of the living room - again as a visual reminder. This, I actually use. I step on it every time I go to put a DVD in the player. I just love movies! I bought a complete set of workout DVD’s featuring Jillian Michaels from The Biggest Loser. I’ve watched them all. I also have a membership to a gym. The little plastic tab given to me for checking in and out of the gym makes a stylish key ring accessory.

I’ve been thinking, the past couple of days, that there may be a better use for all this extra furniture/exercise equipment I’ve invested in. I mean, for God’s sake! I have a coat closet right next to my front door. It has hangers in it and everything.

So one day on my way home from work I stopped at a store and bought a nifty, new scale. According to the box, it’s a “scale, body fat analyzer, water and muscle monitoring, precision electronic scale.” NICE!

You need to understand something before I continue. I’ve always been a little accident prone. Well, not exactly accident prone, but kind of ‘bizarre occurrence’ prone. Examples: 1) once I slept with my eye propped open against my pillow. I guess I was in REM sleep and my eyeball was rubbing against the pillow, because when I woke up it looked like it was bleeding and felt like I’d been punched in the eyeball. Not the eye, the eyeball. 2) when I was in college I fell asleep with my arms stretched out over my head. When I woke up, they were numb from the shoulder down - both of them. When my friend came to get me for breakfast I couldn’t open the door because they were just two dead weights. The only movement I could make with them was by twisting my body quickly from side to side. They would just kind of flop. It took awhile before I could open the door. My friend couldn’t help me - it was locked from the inside.

So I took the scale home and began the programming. I entered my sex (which is zero, but that’s another story) weight, height and age. It registered all of these and gave me an accurate weight, but when it came to the other statistics, I kept getting and “Err” message.

I re-read the directions, reprogrammed and tried again. Same thing. Then I noticed a tip that said the scale may not work correctly if your feet are dry, and to apply a little lotion to them to make better contact with the sensors. Now, let me say this: It DID cross my mind momentarily that there could be catastrophic consequences for this action - but only momentarily, and with no specifics.

It never occurred to me what would happen while standing on linoleum, applying lotion to one foot and then standing on that foot to apply lotion to the other one.

As I was falling, I remember thinking, “What did you think was going to happen, Grace?” WHAM! I fell against the toilet and now have a huge blue and green bruise on my…

But, I haven’t given up. This morning I jogged on my mini-trampoline for about 20 minutes. It’s a start - and no injuries yet! NICE!