Lori Clinch

Are We There Yet?

Gearing up, once again, to slim down

Now that spring is officially here, I believe it's time to ceremoniously drop my winter weight, firm up my abs, and squeeze back into last summer's fat clothes.

It's just too bad that my body isn't willing to comply.

In fact, my body has been downright stubborn about letting me lose a few pounds. Quite frankly, I did all that I could have done to slim down this past winter. I went on an all-fudge diet right before Christmas. When that didn't work, I moved on to the New Year's Leftover Regimen, rounded the corner with the Valentine's Sweet Heart Reduction Plan, and had high hopes of getting lucky on or around St. Patrick's Day.

I got myself through the frigid days on creamed coffee and hard candy, and now that spring is here, I'm a mess.

Even my one-size-fits-all stuff doesn't hang on me right.

Last week I decided to get serious. On Monday I read a newspaper article about Oprah's dietitian. I was so inspired that I watched the dog jog across the floor. Then I walked briskly through the house, flapped my arms during my coffee break, and performed a few deep knee bends while doing laundry.

The next day, I realized it was time I bumped it up a notch, so I popped an exercise video into the VCR and viewed it in its entirety.

On Wednesday the bathroom scale still wasn't showing me numbers that I liked, so I called my friend Peggy and got some tips on the Small Meal Diet. Turns out that if a person skips regular meals and simply has 10 100-calorie snacks throughout the day, the weight will just fall off - according to Peggy, that is. Sadly enough, she offered no tips regarding life-sustaining nutrition or thoughts on how to actually get through lunch, so I decided to have my last 300 calories as an afternoon snack and had cornered the market on failure by 3 p.m.

Thursday was Low-Carb Diet Day and although my sister swore by its results, I didn't lose a pound. On Friday I had made friends with my dumbbells, dug out my ankle weights, and added standing sit-ups to my dishwashing routine. Still, as Saturday approached, I found myself chubby, cranky, and short of breath when I polished my toenails.

"What on earth are you doing?" my husband asked me on Sunday when he found me flogging the bathroom scale with a toilet brush.

"Well," I responded with frustration, "would it kill this thing to show me small weight loss?"

"How about your meal-replacement-bar plan?" he suggested as he used the bathroom door as a shield. "Didn't you lose 10 pounds on that one back in 2004?"

Once again I felt inspired! I ran to the store and bought a box of low-carb, sugar-free and high-protein bars. Not only were they guaranteed to produce results, they had a picture of a thin-looking 20-year-old on the front of the box who seemed to be saying, "If I can do it, you can too!"

I went home and prepared a meal for the family, and as they scarfed it down, I opened my meal bar and put it on a plate. I carried a knife and fork to the table with me in great determination to mentally make this undersized and tasteless candy bar into a meal.

"What's she eating this time?" I heard one of the boys whisper to another.

"I don't know," he responded, "it kinda looks like a brick."

"At least it doesn't smell as bad as the parsnips that she brought to the table yesterday," another child interjected.

"What's it taste like?"

"Can I try it?"

"Oh, that's nasty. Let Huey try it. Do you like it, Huey? Isn't it nasty? Hey Charlie, come here and try Mom's brand-new Bad Diet Bar!"

After a series of samples, they offered up a complete review and determined that the meal-replacement bar was not worth eating, regardless of the results, and then passed me back an empty plate.

I decided to take them at their word and to believe that the meal-replacement bar wasn't worthy of the chewing. Yet, I'll tell you this: if one of them shows up tomorrow sporting 3-pound weight loss that could have been mine, I'm going to chase them down with my toilet brush.

Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book "Are We There Yet?" You can reach her at www.loriclinch.com.