Weight Watcher's Diaries Part Six
By Carol Daelemans

The first 10 pounds!

I've lost the first 10 pounds. I cannot tell you how good this feels. Weight Watchers gives you a little star for every ten pounds. I wanted fireworks. I called my mother and both sisters as soon as I got off the scale. I realize we can't all get excited at every milestone but certain members of your family simply must get excited for all of these things. The same way they act thrilled with each incredibly creative or outstandingly academic thing my two children come up with. I expect nothing less for myself.

For this first big milestone, at least, I was not disappointed. Everyone was very happy for me and excited about the new, upcoming shopping possibilities. I actually have delusions of changing the department I shop in now. I worry the staff of the "Fat Ladies" department will miss me when I have to go downstairs to "Petites" Ha! O.K. So we're not there yet, but a girl can dream, can't she?!

My trainer actually held me up as an example to another of his clients. I was the "After" picture, not the "Before" picture this time! Can you believe that?! All right, so I have a long way to go still before I can really be the "After" photo but it sure felt nice. He had a new client who was questioning how much work and time it was going to take to tighten up what she wanted tightened up and he told her about how I'd lost 10 pounds in a reasonable amount of time. He told her about the Weight Watchers but of course he emphasized the extra cardio I was doing in addition to my workouts with him. I plan to relish this time because it looks like an awfully long way down the graph to that 10% weight loss goal.

I actually have pants that are too big now. While this is certainly exciting, it's also a pain in the patoot. I can't imagine I'll enjoy shopping for pants any more now with a smaller rear end than I did before. After all, this is not J. Lo's heiny I'm trying to cover. It's still the oversized rear of a 40 year old woman. I could drop 50 more pounds and it would still be the oversized rear of a 40 year old woman. Some things won't change.

I saw one of those Weight Loss commercials the other day full of incredibly tight, toned, tiny beautiful people. I looked over at my husband, "This diet isn't going to make me look like that. I still won't be tall and thin and blonde." O.K. Well, I could do the blonde if I wanted to but my hair is nearly black right now so it would be a shocker.

Actually, God is doing a good job lightening my hair color for me. There's been a dramatic increase in the number of white hairs I've had to evict off my head. My three year old has even commented on it, "Mommy, you have white stuff in your hair." Sigh. "Yeah, honey. Yeah I do." And you put them there. This is yet another one of those things I so blithely thought wouldn't bother me until they actually started happening to me.

Lately, I'm looking more and more like my mother every day. Don't get me wrong, my mother is a beautiful. She was stunning in her early years (read: before she had children) and is still beautiful. It's just that sometimes when I get out of the shower I'm shocked to see my mother there in the mirror. It turns out she's going through the same thing. Just as I'm discovering that I now have my mother's hands, she's noticed she has her mother's hands. I guess it is a trade-in-trade-up sort of a thing. I suppose worse things could happen to me than turning into my mother. I can think of several people's mothers I'd never want to turn into. At least I can rest secure in the knowledge that one day my daughters will start to look like me and it will come as a complete shock to them. I'll try not to laugh.