A weighty topic

I think we all had fun playing with Carol's tombstone maker. I came up with this epitaph for myself and happily e-mailed it off to the family. Then I started thinking about what I was saying about myself. I've struggled with my weight ever since my freshman year in college, when I put on the fabled freshman ten pounds. My roommate Ginny and I decided in the early spring that we had to deal with the weight gain. We bought a little calorie-counter book. I can still picture it. It was black-bound--a grainy fake leather-- and about 3 inches wide by 6 or so long. We studied it carefully and planned our dining room meals accordingly. At Wellesley, breakfast and lunch were cafeteria-style, and we limited ourselves to a hard-boiled egg and fruit or juice each morning. Lunchtime was usually a salad, if that was available. Otherwise we took a couple of slices of bread up to our room and ate them with more hardboiled eggs snitched at breakfast. (We weren't permitted to take food from the dining room.) Dinner was more of a challenge. We ate at round tables that sat eight (with high-backed chairs with a "W" painted Wellesley blue carved into each back.) The main course, usually a sliced roast, and eight plates were piled in front of the senior at each table. Other dishes--veggies and potatoes--were in front of the girls to her right. She'd put a couple of slices of meat on the plate and hand it to the next girl for potatoes, and so on around the table. A gravy boat was last. We said "No thanks" to the potatoes and gravy, and then skipped dessert. And we were successful! We each lost about ten pounds by spring break. I'm sure the fact that we were accountable to each other was the deciding factor. That was the first of many, many diets through the years. These days I can lose a few pounds by starving myself, but as soon as I eat again, the pounds come hurrying home. Sigh.