I Hate Everyone OR Yes, My Diet's Going Just Fine, Thanks

Today, I actually had to resist the urge to run over a cute, thin jogger.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Barb Cooper. I am a writer, the mother of two gorgeous girls, the wife to one gorgeous man and I, myself, am overweight. I could do a lot of explaining how I got into the position of needing to lose 30 pounds but it's basically the same story you hear from everyone else: I ate too much of the wrong foods and exercised too little and now none of my pants fit and I weigh more than I ever have in my life, save only when I had a small human emerging from my body.

So, I'm on Day 10 of the South Beach Diet. It's a good diet and I really need to be on it but, let's just face it, dieting sucks. There is no way around it. It sucks the suckage of NAFTA. The suckage of sludge. Major suckage. Sucks.

Given that my attitude is really stellar and I hate everyone, I thought maybe I'd write the Phases of the South Beach Diet, Barb Style.

(Obviously, I'm not talking about the ACTUAL phases of the diet, but more the phases of the DIETER. (Which looked a lot like a German name when I write it like that. One who diets, is what I'm trying to say.))

Phase One: Steely Determination, With a Side of Wanting to Eat My Own Arm

When first we meet our intrepid, if chubby, heroine, she is about the embark on on the first day of her diet. She has had The Epiphany and The Epiphany said, "There will be no Epiphany. Suck it up and do what you need to do."

This, frankly, made our heroine smack herself upside the head (Texas phrase) and use other, stronger (Texas) phrases and to admit that she'd been waiting for a bolt of lightening to hit her and a mighty voice to say, "Now, it is time to diet!"

Whatdya mean, that's not going to happen?

"Oh, well, okay, then," our heroine thinks. "I guess I will start the South Beach Diet. I wonder if I should read the book first? Nah."

By noon, she almost gets into a fist fight at the local gas station.

She assuages the murderous rage she feels toward every single living thing on the planet by sending copious whining e-mails to her friends. Friends don't let friends diet alone.

She goes to bed thankful that she is too weak from hunger to actually hurt anyone.

Phase Two, Days 2-4: Jubilation and Love for the Entire World!

The weight is FALLING off of her! She's happy and feels virtuous as she watches the scale at her morning weigh-in go down a pound every single day. "This is EASY," she thinks. "I can DO this. And in a month, I will be done! I will be svelte and happy and be invited to be on Oprah."

She sets up a spread sheet so that she can track her weight-loss every single day! She writes to her friends that she is learning so much. She is grateful for this opportunity to test her resolve.

Phrase Three, Day Five: I Hate Everyone Redux

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? Despite the fact that she ate twigs and fat-free cottage cheese (for the truly, truly desperate) yesterday, she weighs the same as the last weigh-in. She sighs in exasperation and heads down to make her breakfast of hard boiled eggs and black coffee. Her friends reassure her throughout the day as she chronicles her frustration endlessly.

Phase Three, Part Two--Day Six: Losing Not Weight But the Will to Live

One pound gained. Loss of will to live. Still sticking to diet but only because life already sucks so much that dieting doesn't make much of a difference one way or the other. Hate people. Wonder why ever born. Never want to see eggs again. Why diet when we will all soon be dead anyway? Oh, I know, why don't I make things even suckier by adding exercise? Yahoo. I wish I were dead.

Phase Four, Days 7-9: Acceptance and Hatred

Okay, so this is my lot in life. To diet and weigh myself and watch other people drinking wine. I've lost either three or five pounds, depending on what half hour I weigh myself. I accept that it's going to take me forever to lose this weight and that I better just hunker down and keep moving. But honestly, if one more person tells me that I'm not on a diet, it's a LIFESTYLE CHANGE, I'm going to commit a felony. My friend Tiffany sent me this uncharacteristically perky e-mail saying how cool it is to think that we're losing weight even while sitting at our desks. I thought seriously about sending her some elephant poo but she's been so remarkably patient with my six million obsessive and whiny e-mails that maybe I should make it a dozen roses.

God, I hate dieting. Would it have been too much to just be one of those naturally thin people whose metabolisms eat more times than they do? Perhaps I'll contract some sort of not-very-serious, not life-threatening disease where the only lingering effect will be unexplained weight loss.

I know, I know --what kind of sick thinking is THAT? I read a study one time that said that that most women would rather have CANCER than be fifteen pounds overweight. (As a cancer survivor, I would just like to say those people are crazy on legs. Dudes, let's not lose ALL perspective.)

I think longingly of the days when I could eat large cinnamon rolls, gooey with butter and almost melted sugar and drink coffee that didn't taste like lacquer remover. Of course, those days were pre-children, pre-40th birthday (Goodbye metabolism! I'll miss you FOREVER!), pre-foot injury that ended my running days. But details, people, details. I'm talking about the pain of dieting NOW, at this point in my life, and it really is PAINFUL, and all the hatred is exhausting.

But I am doing it and do you know why? Well, neither do I. I think it has something to do with tapping into some long dormant discipline that says I am a kick-ass, creative, smart woman and I'm tired of not feeling at home in my skin. I want to walk into a room full of women and not immediately feel like the fattest one there. I want to stop sucking in when my husband tries to put his arm around me--lest he feel my rolls of fat. I want to feel strong and beautiful and sexy and unstoppable. And if that means I have to stay on this freaking diet--sorry LIFESTYLE--for the rest of my life, so be it.

Besides, you know, five pounds (or three) in nine days isn't really that shabby.