Gravity

A pair of photographs serve to remind me of "What Not to Do" when it comes to weight maintenance. The first dates back to the early nineties when I earned part of the exorbitant price of my prom dress by doing some work for a local formal wear shop. At 5'8" I weighed in at about 105 pounds. "Skinny" is an understatement. My mother did warn me that one day my metabolism would turn on me.

And turn on me with a vengeance. The "fat" picture was taken the week I stepped onto a scale reading 242 pounds and discovered that size 24 pants were a bit snug. Followed by the week our son's doctor told us he was becoming dangerously obese while looking at me rather pointedly. No longer able to deny that what went up really needed to come down in the wake of the Boy's weight issue, and recognizing that it might be time to shed the "baby weight" (since the baby was in elementary school), our family began a long summer program of changing our eating habits and exercising together. There was no "magic bullet" to make us thin. No pills, procedures, creams, machines, or tricks. We simply consumed fewer calories and expended more energy. And it worked.

The fat picture remains on the fridge, but the skinny picture has been added to keep both extremes in perspective.