Weekly Weigh In #14: I lost an Alex.

I'm sure you don't realize it, but I am actually the human version of an app that converts things from one measurement into another.  I didn't really understand how good I've gotten at this until today.


I spend a lot of time converting things internally.  Whenever I see someone eating something, I silently equate it in my mind to how many shakes that food might equal.  With cat-like mental reflexes, I quickly convert a person's meal to how many shakes it would equal... and even have the class to stop myself from barking out the conversion results.  After all, how neighborly would it be for me to shout, "hey, lady!  Your chicken nuggets?  That's like 30 of my shakes!  The dipping sauce alone has more calories and sugar than I consume in a whole day!"  Not exactly a "bon appetit," is it?


When I go to the mall and drive past Five Guys, I smell the peanut oil that they're cooking those delightful french fries in.  I quickly roll up my window, calculating that just by smelling it I may take in 250 calories (just over one shake).  Like a hypocritical snob, I turn my nose up as I drive past, feeling righteous that I'm not inside eating - even though I will always love those burgers.


I'm less democratic when it's my good friends or family - sometimes without trying.  When I see my sweet stepson reach for a bag of Funnyuns, I know I'm making the "there's more nutrition in shoelaces!" face.  He sees it - I don't even need to make a peep.  Nowadays, he's reading labels and eating less junk - so the face means something good in this case.

As a dieter, you're primed to become a human conversion calculator.  You're given lots of tricks for figuring out how much you should eat.  For instance, the right-sized portion of chicken or steak is about the size of a deck of cards.  The right-sized serving of hummus is not an entire container - it's more like the size of a plum.  And having only one burrito is probably the right portion size - not 3 - even if they ARE less than a buck at Taco Bell.  


I have also become highly adept at converting my weight loss pounds to actual things.  This handy skill is great for helping me visualize how much I've actually lost, instead of simply saying a number.  I recently saw a box of food in the aisle at the grocery store, still in the cardboard shipping package.  It said, "unit weight: 14 lbs."  I picked it up - 14 lbs. is heavy!  Think about how heavy a 5lb. bag of sugar is... how many of those was I storing in my hips?  Weight adds up, literally - no wonder my legs and back always hurt before.


Today, I weighed in.  Here are the results.

Weight:  222.

Pounds lost this week:  2.

Total pounds lost:  46.

I went to work after my weigh in, and later in the day I mentioned to my friend, Amy, that I have lost 46 pounds.  She smiled at me and said, "that's how much Alex weighs."  I immediately did my super-hero-like mental calculation - imagining Alex, and the last time I picked her up and hugged her - and the sheer truth of this moment completely overloaded my brain.

Alex, after a day of shopping with Mommy,
enjoying a pretzel and a Barbie at Target.

Alex is the daughter of Amy and Aaron - two of our dearest friends.  She is smart, beautiful, and generally awesome.  I always think of her as "baby girl," mostly because that's what both her parents lovingly call her.  And that name denotes a little person.  But she's growing up so fast - she's turning into a lovely young lady who loves animals and playing in the woods behind her house.  She's 46 pounds.  And that is now what I have lost.  Or, more accurately, what I used to carry around all the time.  Damn.


Tonight, I feel incredibly proud of myself, because when your internal conversion calculator can start measuring pounds lost as people, you have really achieved something.