Day 77: Ounces From Glory (209).

So close ... and yet so very far.

Five pounds would have gotten me the elusive red bookmark, but thanks to my Nursing Mothers Mishap (Day 76), I only managed to lose 4.8 pounds. (So, does that mean I was only two ounces away? Or, since there are 16 ounces in a pound, was I eight ounces away? I just tried to call George - I go to him with all my math and measurement questions - but he didn't pick up. Oh well.)

Anyway, when I saw the 4.8 number show up on the scale, I was very tempted to start shedding clothes until I reached five pounds. After all, there was only one guy in the room, a 60something Weight Watcher's employee working one of the room's two weigh stations. I restrained myself, though ... Not only would stripping have shocked the blue hairs in the room, it would have been cheating, since I was wearing the same outfit I was weighed in last week.

Yet another illusion was smashed when the Weigh-In Woman told me to keep up the good work so I'd get a red bookmark next week. That's when I realized you get one for losing five pounds period, not for losing five pounds in a single week. When I told Jackie, she said that made sense - Weight Watchers would never encourage people to lose five pounds in a single week. I guess that's true, but getting one for losing five pounds in one week seems way cooler somehow.

The meeting itself was largely uneventful. The theme this week was "Be the Master of Your Fate," and that got people talking about their weight-loss goals. One woman looked up from her knitting (she was one of four - count 'em four - people knitting) long enough to throw in her 25 cents:

"I used to think that my goal was perfection," she said. "Achieving my ideal weight. But that's not it. It's an ongoing thing. It's a very existential philosophy."

The room twittered with good-natured laughter, at which point the woman added, to no one in particular, "I'm sorry honey - I've got a lot of degrees" ... and promptly went back to her knitting.

Another woman spoke of how she'd been sick that week, and instead of planning her meals, she'd relied on the Trader Joe's pizzas in her freezer. She'd felt guilty all week, and didn't want to come to the meeting. Imagine her suprise, then, to discover that she'd managed to lose a pound anyway.

This set the entire room buzzing. One of the women behind me (another knitter, this one a little hard of hearing) leaned over to her friend.

"Did she say she lost weight during the pizza?"
Her friend nodded. "Yep."
Knitter #2 shook her head in disbelief. "Wow - she lost weight during the pizza."
Her friend again nodded. "I know. During the pizza."

And so it went. When one woman said she had a big birthday event coming up, and wanted to lose 10 pounds before it happened, the room erupted in a chorus of "You can do it!" sentiments. When another woman said how her granddaughter had hugged her and said she loved her the way she was, there was a similarly loud chorus of "Awwwww." Pretty queer, to be sure, but everyone's heart was certainly in the right place.

Surprisingly, I haven't said a word yet. I'm not sure why - maybe it's because I'm not quite ready to have all those eyes looking at me. I'm not ready to hear a chorus of anything just yet.

Maybe next week.