Week 30

Karlie was striving for better. For the past two weeks she'd run under the philosophy that Stress+Summer+her Period= Smores, and she fully expected it to bite her in the butt when she weighted in. However, it hadn't been as bad as she had expected, up only point six. Still it was time to get back on track and do better. And considering the smores, better wasn't a lot to ask of herself.

She'd fallen off the waggon hard, going through two six packs of Hershey bars in about a week and a half. She didn't have any excuse other than she wanted them, but now was a time for progress.

Karlie was tired of working herself silly at a job that wasn't paying what she was worth and cutting hours left and right. It wasn't the work though. It was wondering when she'd have a weekend off, or weather or not she'd have a holiday off to she her mom. She liked the people she worked with, she even liked her boss. she just wasn't making enough or getting enough time.

She'd applied for a position at the university on a whim just because it provided all the things she'd been complaining about plus a $3.65 per hour pay increase. But looking at the posting now she was more terrified that she'd get an interview than excited. She realized that she should have read more thoroughly and quite possibly made the same mistake a second time, getting all excited about an opportunity then discovering it's more than she bargained for.

Her life felt constricted, stifled, and stuck. She wasn't sure how to go about getting her masers degree, her mom was slowly dieing, and her boyfriend was taking his time moving their three year relationship to the next step. She felt like she had very little control over anything. She was trying to do the right thing by everyone. She just didn't know what the right thing to do by herself was. What she wanted was for her mother to be fine. What she wanted was for Stewart to go where she could go to school. What she wanted was for him to say, "screw our circumstances merry me." But that wasn't how things were gonna go.

Looking out form her deli window she stared toward the bakery. Nope, that's too easy she thought.

Week 29

Karlie couldn't take the stress anymore. She looked down at the chocolate frosted doughnut with sprinkles and felt like asking it why it was so cheep. A little change bought you instantaneous, momentary satisfaction followed by a load of "hit my 10% weight goal two weeks ago," guilt.

She hated that she was backsliding and that her etools tracker would show at least a months worth of nothing. It had started out simple. She hadn't tracked because she wasn't home, then her mom's health took her away from home again. Then when she got back knowing her mothers prognosis wasn't good she couldn't find the motivation.

Karlie just wanted something to be easy. Her life was anything but easy at this point but a chocolate covered doughnut with sprinkles was easy. The only eating plan that was on track now was her dogs.

She took a moment t o chuckle at the fact there were nine cupcakes sitting in her fridge at home. Trish had brought them as soon as she heard the news.

"I know your on an eating plan and all. But, it's not like I could bring you comfort carrots," Trish told her.

The problem wasn't the cupcakes. The problem was the fact the Karlie was eating two a day like lithium with no desire to exercise, that was the problem. Thirty minutes a day wasn't that hard to find. Hell, she'd done 30-45 for four days straight just last week and her schedule was no more packed this week then it was then. Which means, "I'm busy," was not a valid excuse.

"That's it," she said to the doughnut making the homeless man at the table next to her look up, "30 minutes tonight before Stewart gets home." She ate the doughnut and went back into work.

Week 25

Karlie stared at the unsuspecting woman taking down her weight for the week. She wondered if the woman knew how desperately she wanted to blame her for that stupid plus two. It was the second gain week in a row for Karlie and she was all but ready to just scream in the crowded Weight Watches center. She speculated weather or not the woman would simply look at her like, “Ya I know how you feel,” or just pretend she didn’t notice.

Karlie wished desperately to just make the numbers magically go down.

“You can step down now,” the woman told her.

“Oh, I was just hoping that the earth would shift and make me lighter in a moment.”

They both laughed, knowing that they had all hoped that every day of their lives when the scale was involved.

“Are you staying for the meeting?”

“Absolutely.”

Karlie seriously wanted to go home before work but knew that a missed meeting session would lead to yet another week of disappointment, another week another chance at better choices she thought.

She took her seat and stared at the loving couple on the other side of the room and wondered if it would ever be possible for Stewart to understand her as much as that couple understood each other. But she also knew that as far as her significant other was concerned he would never really grasp the unfathomableness of the task at hand. Stewart would most likely never grow beyond a small ponch that would never even creep over the top of his belt and in many ways she was thankful for such a thing, but on the other hand, not having the ability to watch the numbers on the scale grow would leave him without the knowledge of how it was about so much more than weight to go back the other direction.

The leader stepped to the front and asked how they were all doing. Karlie looked at the topic for the day.

“Lets just say it’s a good time for a talk about self-controll.”

“Not a good week for you then Karlie?”

Did she talk out loud? Clearly she had. Her leader moved on into the lecture for the day, and Karlie slowly willed herself into better consciousness. Not a morning person, but also armed with the knowledge that the body is lighter in the morning, she gets up every Thursday to step up on that scale at 9am. Not that that’s super early, but to a girl who works evenings and has to get up no earlier than 10 to make it to work it was a feat of pure will.

Getting back in her car Karlie mulled over the topic for the day. Controll, self-controll, control of ones self, she smiled. Sometimes she wondered if this journey was heading in the direction she wanted, two steps forward one step back was better than no steps at all, it had already become plain that the pace of this trip wasn’t going to be as quick as she liked but what was. Time usually mad a mockery of her anyway, what she excelled at was accomplishments no matter the time frame and she was sick of this one eluding her, that’s why she’d decided to rely on the experts, a company that’s been in business this long has track record going for it and that’s what she wanted, a better track record. Otherwise it was just another in the however many diets she’d tried that led to nowhere.

Work was a simple thing. Put the food in the fryer, put into hot case, and do not under any circumstances eat it.