After dinner. I am doing the dishes. We are settling in for a quiet weeknight of TV and reading. (The benefit of being mentally ambidextrous. I can also eat while conversing, as long as it’s not about geography.)
Burke is on the couch calculating something on her phone. I say ‘something’ but I know precisely what it is – points.
With the goal of dropping a few unwanted pounds, Burke has decided on the Weight Watchers method of punishing the body for having enjoyed its past self. This method, preferred by gulags around the world and the Matre’d at the Guantanamo Bay canteen, involves a set of daily points. In a nutshell: you get a set of points per day (e.g. 30), all of the food and drink items you ingest have a designated point ranking, and you can’t breech your points. How you decide to allocate these points is up to you, as long as you stay within your allotted points. Sounds reasonable enough . . . until you are chewing on the back of your tongue at 8 pm.
Since Weight Watchers is such a well-known system, everything that can be put in your mouth, chewed, and swallowed has a point ranking. It will surely not surprise you that the better tasting that thing is, the higher its point ranking. Out of a 30 daily points, a ½ cup of vanilla ice cream would cost you 7 points, a candy bar would dock you 10 points, and a beer 5 points; for a small order of McDonald’s fries you’d be charged 10 points – a third of your day’s allowance. It had better be the best fries you have ever tasted.
Surely, we know that if you’re trying to lose weight, your best modus operandi is to skip the fries and ice cream. But it’s the amounts that can really get to you. A ½ cup of vanilla ice cream? A small order of fries? I eat ½ cup of ice cream as a warmup to my main serving of ice cream. A small order of fries is what I buy for the walk home from McDonald’s.
Unfair?
Yes.
But the point system, she hath no mercy.
Sadly, it gets worse. Things you have come to depend on as ‘not that bad’ are indeed ‘very, very bad’. For example, a slice of pizza (as in only one of the eight slices that your pizza usually comes sliced into) costs its devourer 10 points. Ten points. One slice of pizza. This means that 90 seconds after our ordered pizza arrives, I will have eaten two-thirds of my day’s allotted points before sitting down. If I’m having a bad day and order a pizza on my own, by the end of the night I will have ingested 80 points – almost three times as much as I should.
This isn’t unfair, this is draconian!
But it somehow gets worse. See, most people understand that pizza, ice cream, and hotdogs are going to lead to a gain in weight – that is, unless you are one of those people who don’t gain weight (in which case, go to hell and stay there). But a large egg is 3 points, a glass of whole milk is 6 points, an avocado is 5 points, a turkey sandwich with mayo on wheat is 11 points, and a chicken leg (drumstick, thigh + skin) is 7 points. Hotdogs, sure – but chicken!
This isn’t unfair.
It’s not draconian.
It’s a betrayal of epic proportions.
And those proportions all cost you points.
Back in the day when a skinny-ish version of Oprah Winfrey was outlining the WW system, my parents both did it. Mom was fine. She followed the rules. Dad did OK until he learned that Lean Cuisine cheeseburgers were 5 points each. And, sure enough, he had five of them a day and – if you excused the ice cream and the soda – more or less stayed within his points. I used to be a little judgmental about this, but I suddenly understand his attempt to game the system.
After calculating, Burke announces the points she and I both have remaining. In this game, it’s the lower points that win. She’s winning. I’m eyeing up a bag of pretzels that I would throw an old person under a bus to eat.
When Burke brings the dog down, I make my move. But it’s not for the pretzels. We have found that Halloween – bite-sized – candy that I brought back from the states has only 2 points. It’s the best way to sneak in an after-dinner snack.
I am trying to decide between the infinitesimally small Baby Ruth candy bar or the miniscule Butterfinger. I’m sucking on my back right molar, because that is the only part of my mouth that actually gets to enjoy the chocolaty taste. What I wouldn’t give for an eighth of a piece of pizza or a third of a hotdog. Maybe a cocktail weenie? Maybe I have ¼ of a Lean Cuisine burger in the freezer somewhere. I decide on the unlikelihood of that and I make my choice.
My right back molar enjoys a fleeting sense of happiness.
The rest of my heads to the couch to read a book of fiction, wherein chicken doesn’t kill you.
