Anchors Aweigh

I decided that I could read labels and decline foods of unknown carb content and deny myself the satisfaction that eating a soft pretzel smothered in yellow mustard would bring in the name of skinniness.

I decided one more week would surely do it.

OK - One entire week is not exactly truthful. I did eat a peice of birthday cake, grainy horrible icing and all when my entire company turned out to celebrate my CEO's 60th. My VP, who would have given me a pass, nearly fainted at the sight. I told her one day would not derail my diet. I'd get back in the saddle tomorrow.

Saturday morning came and I was feeling wispy and thin. I could hardly wait to step on the scale, though I did have a little conversation with myself about the possibility that the birthday cake would have curtailed my results a little bit.

I stepped on the scale. Six more pounds had melted away! I was thrilled! I shreaked to Lars. He came running (Eventually. Ok, maybe "running" is an exaggeration. After all, he had nothing to gain by my achievement in the svelteness department.)

I told him how thrilled I was to have lost 6 more pounds, and stepped on the scale to show him.

But it showed that I'd lost nine! What?

Three more pounds in 10 minutes?

Lars looked at me like I'd gone mad. I stepped off the scale and then stepped back on. This time it showed that I'd gained 8 pounds!

Lars shook his head and walked away chuckling to himself. "Something is wrong with the scale," he gloated. It was all I could do not to pick it up and throw it at him. For the next ten minutes I stepped on and off of the scale repeatedly. A gain of 4. A loss of 7. A gain of 2. A gain of 11. A lost of 6. I was beside myself.

I knew I'd lost weight. I knew it. My clothes were swimming on me. My pants were loose. My skirts were hanging.

I avoided the urge to stuff my face with powdered sugar doughnuts and instead drove to Bed Bath and Beyond to buy a new scale. I had to know the truth.

I took the new scale out of the box and carefully read how to calibrate it. How to make sure the surface it was placed on did not interfere with the results. I peed. Then I stepped on the scale.

I stepped off and stepped on again. And again. It showed that I had not lost a pound since last week.

And I knew it was not the birthday cake.

I'd thought I'd needed to lose 10 pounds. And I guess I had. But I had not counted on one thing.

The scale had been wrong from the beginning. I'd really had 20 pounds to lose. All that I had done and I was still only half way there.