I wish anything in life was as easy as getting fat. Or as much fun. Or as delicious. Is anybody else hungry right now? In her latest memoir, actress Candice Bergen writes about a thirty pound weight gain over the past fifteen years.  She refers to herself as a champion eater, and has no regrets about demolishing every carbohydrate in sight–I believe she actually wrote that “no carb is safe”.  I hear that, I’ve been known to murder a meal or two.

Good for her, she’s earned the elastic waistband in her designer slacks. Open up another tab and Google “Young Candice Bergen”. Stunning–utterly photogenic, and looking as if she’s just come from her bungalow in Malibu.  Seriously though, what kind of deal with the devil did she have to make to get that kind of volume in her hair?

Now heading towards her seventies, Bergen’s happy to lose count of those calories. She’s had a dynamic and interesting life, well-traveled and whatnot. Candice Bergen would know where to get a good burger. If I once was able to pull off an outfit like the one below, I am perfectly happy to skip the  Jane Fonda third act make over, and hit up the world of full flavoured fat head first.

What a way to not go gentle into that good night. Just get the most expensive bathrobe ever and let the calories fly. If I make it to 100, I’ll get a one way ticket on a cruise ship. I’ll be the one lurking at the buffet like an elderly Elizabeth Taylor: drunk off my ass, jewel encrusted  and putting mayonnaise on absolutely everything.

Until then, I’m on the weight-loss track–for three months now. Seventeen pounds and fourteen inches lost. Which is not too bad seeing that when I started I had just come from the Seattle/Portland/Bend Cider & Carbs Tour of 2015. A week later I went to Las Vegas, and then there was Thanksgiving, and the Florence and the Machine in Vancouver, and then Halloween. When having my meeting with Elisha at Herbal One, she asks how I did over Halloween weekend. I had spent my Halloween as the Queen of Hearts, and she had a few nibbles of chocolate. Beth popped her head into the room, congratulating me on was quite possibly the greatest excuse ever: Blame it on the Queen of Hearts, she can take it.

It’s not that I need a weight-loss plan, it’s that I need Ranch Dressing Rehab. I need to be cured of a poor appetite by day, and an almost werewolf-like urge to  eat all of the food in the world after nine o’clock at night. Breakfast is for suckers! Give me a grilled cheese at midnight!

Which is why I now go to bed at about that time. If I stay up late to write, I try to stick with tea. Which is not nearly as cheesy or buttery or plunge into ketchup-able but that’s my cross to bear.

Around the time I  started the weight-loss plan, I was reading some tabloid article about Khloe Kardashian and her daily diet. It was an extraordinary amount of mini meals punctuated by intense work outs.  Seriously, how much food and gym-time can a gal pack away?  Then again, if you want to look that good in a full lunge, you’re going to have to do some serious work.

Khloe K is my distant cousin of the YoYo Sisterhood; with a quick bit of research you can immediately see a pattern over the last few years. Headlines have announced her twenty-five to thirty pound loss quite a few times. Is this is same weight that just keep coming back like a stray dog or old boyfriend? On a much smaller scale, I too have been feeling that pain; I was in a rhythm, losing a consistent amount of weight, writing in the ole food journal, meeting with a coach daily. Then, the schedule changed, and it was difficult to get that groove back.  Still, each day there was effort and intention. After ten days away, I was looking forward to seeing the ladies, but not facing off with that damned scale.

The weight-loss halted, but it didn’t become a weight-gain.  had plateaued. To the ounce, I was the exact same weight from the last time I came in. It was like getting a C+ on a test that you totally didn’t study for. Yes, I could have done better, I could have studied, prepared, made up little flash cards, but I didn’t. No excuses. The dog didn’t eat my homework, I did. It was not the desired effect, but I still took it as a win–that while I was busy with everything else in my life, my weight remained consistent. Not every choice was my best; but they still overweighed the number of poor ones.  In the occasionally discouraging world of weight-loss it’s perfectly acceptable to celebrate the C+’s

I got a text from Elisha the other day. Just checking in, making sure I was eating. ‘Eat the whole banana’, is a mantra I try to live by. My life is truly action packed, and each day brings wild variables that make eating at regimented times difficult. Breakfast at six am is completely  uncool. Coffee with milk and CBC 2, and a little dog to watch me putting on make-up is all I can stomach. Once at work, I just forget to do it. There have been many half eaten abandoned bananas near my desk.

Besides my late-night predatory craving for  carbohydrates, not eating enough it my biggest issue.  Sorry? You want you to eat how much? Coffee and fruit until a half-assed dinner at 9pm isn’t the key to a slim figure? That is such upsetting news.  I’d be the only person to get stranded on a desert island and instead of coming out tanned and thin a la Brooke Shields in Blue Lagoon…

…I’d look like Elvis in Hawaii circa 1977.

The last month has really been a jazzy little two step between gaining and losing small increments of weight. With the calendar at it’s busiest, it’s been difficult to get to Herbal One with as much regularity as before. I realize more than ever how much those connections matter; those texts from Beth and Elisha (#eatthewholebanana), mean a lot to me.  At those points when you could just give up and go for the full Bergan; those ladies are there with all the support a girl can handle–and that kind of encouragement is simply delicious.

Images Courtesy of the Internet etc…