January 2, 2009
Friday

“Oprah Confesses! She Weighs 200 Pounds!”

The headline on the cover of the TV Guide caught my eye while I stood in line at the supermarket. My cart was filled with a combination of righteous good nutrition (a sweet potato to bake and have with a raita of fat-free yogurt, mango chunks, and hot pepper flakes) and some of the stuff you just can’t seem to do without in this season of indulgence (more chopped walnuts and honey for another batch of Ron’s sfratti). And I already knew about the state of Oprah’s weight. The latest issue of her magazine was also in my cart. The cover shows Oprah as she looks right now, definitely pear-shaped in a purple velour sweatshirt set, standing beside a photo of her several years and about fifty pounds ago.

While Oprah’s weight gain is regrettable for her, is it something to “confess?” Has she committed a sin or a crime of some kind? In the article she does talk about how she let sound nutritional practices slide in favor of the easy, quick satisfaction that indulgence in high-fat low-quality foods provides. I mean, she is busy and all, with all those love stories to pursue and all those books to read, and if she’s going to be vigilant about something it should probably be the quality of the material she hangs her powerful endorsement on.

But confess?

Okay, I’ll confess something. I weigh 221.4, officially tonight at the Weight Watchers weigh-in. As usual (I know because I’ve been to a lot of them) for the first week of a new year, the line of people signing up and getting all their new materials wound around the small lobby area and extended into the meeting room.

Does that number say something shameful about me, say something that, if you didn’t know it about me before, will change your opinion of me? Will it make you drop off my list of readers, unfriend me on Facebook, reevaluate the importance of my place in your life?

If it does, well, farewell and Godspeed. I don’t need you.

Back in November, when I thought I might have a serious illness that would take more than minimal effort to manage, I did some reshaping and updating of an area of this site where I have from time to time written about my weight loss efforts. I thought I might need a dedicated “getting back my health” journal. It turns out that, although I do not have that serious illness, I do wish to get serious, again, about weight loss, not because I have anything to confess or to feel ashamed of, but because I need to do everything I can to make the ten years that began yesterday (and the ten years that will begin January 1, 2010, and January 1, 2011, and on and on) the ten best years of my life.

I am not ashamed of my numbers. I weigh in on Fridays, and I’ll more than likely post my results, here, or there, or somewhere. And if that changes things for us, dear readers, then I guess maybe you have something to confess.

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A year ago, I wrote about a lot of blog projects I didn’t follow through on.

Two years ago, I did not post on this date.

Three years ago, I wrote about trying to get back into “normal” life again in the new year.

Four years ago, I wrote about some teenage party guests next door stealing a yard sign from our house.

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