Wednesday Weigh-In No. 11

Previous Weight: 166
Current Weight: 165

It's amazing what the loss of one pound will do to buoy a girl's spirits. I was sitting here pouting this morning because I was certain that it was a gain for me today. But, instead it was a loss. Not a big loss. Not a significant loss. But a loss that turned around my three-week slide and gave me hope that I could take that one pound and make it two, or three, or ten or twenty. OK, so I'm getting ahead of myself, but damn, what a mood change.

So I thought I'd give you a little example of what it's like around our office on Wednesday mornings. I usually get here right about 9 a.m. When the sales staff get out of their meeting shortly after, they'll trickle into the editorial department and mill around looking for the Scorekeeper, who often has early morning appointments that cause him to come in about an hour late on Wednesdays. I'll get first one question ("Where's the Scorekeeper?"), then another ("The Scorekeeper's not here yet, huh?"), then another ("Why isn't he here? I can feel the weight creeping back on as we speak!"). They'll mill around the cubicles and peek over the Scorekeeper's walls. They'll hug the front windows waiting for his arrival.

When the Scorekeeper finally shows up, we're all salivating to get on that scale. He's still dropping his bookbag onto a chair and flipping on his (obnoxiously loud) computer while we're forming a queue in front of his cubicle. It's a little irksome to him, to be honest. I mean, the man's a coffee drinker (have you seen that cup on his desk? It's like a science experiment testing the longevity of coffee stains on ceramic), and you don't mess with a coffee drinker who hasn't had his first cup of coffee in the morning, or even a moment to warm up his chair yet. He's been pretty good-natured about this contest, you have to admit, considering he's abstaining from participation other than to document the loss of ass around here.

During and after the weigh-in, there's a fluctuating amount of banter, cheers and moaning. Different diet busters are discussed -- from green beer on St. Patrick's Day to Cadbury eggs in anticipation of Easter -- and weight losses or gains are met with varying degrees of congratulations or sympathy. At this late stage in the game, the only person who meets with any sort of ill will is Miss Competitive, who continues to kick everyone's ass on a weekly basis (25+ pounds and counting), and the more competitive among us have a hard time taking this lightly. Add to her weight loss the fact that she's ahead in the office March Madness brackets, and you have a perfect storm for office envy. She seemingly has nothing left to lose, but continues to lose weight anyway. She looks fabulous: something like a lithe Greek goddess, if you will. But it's hard to be happy for her when you still look like a Disney's Fantasia hippopotamus in a tutu.

After the weigh-in, a small crowd usually forms around the Big Loser, who is transformed week after week. You can almost see her body tightening right in front of you. She swears she's been hit and miss on the treadmill, so it's gotta be the Zone diet that's working for her. (We're talking 35+ pounds, people.) I'm sure as hell not one to drop brand names on a whim, but she's a walking billboard so I almost feel obligated to give a shout out to the Zone. I've been reading the book and checking out the web site, but I've been reluctant to start the diet myself -- mainly because I'm really, really bad at following directions or doing what other people tell me to do, and that's what following a regimented diet always feels like to me.

I also wanted to note that we have a couple of Tortoises to the Hares on staff. A handful of us have lost right around 10 pounds each. And Boss has managed to drop 15+ pounds so far -- it's a lot if you consider that he wasn't overweight to begin with.

Weekly cumulative totals also tell an interesting story: for the first three or four weeks we were all on a roll dropping between 10 and 15 pounds total (for the whole office). On the fifth week, we had a cumulative gain of a couple of pounds, which seemed to shock us back into double digit weight loss the next week. But between week 6 and 10, we all slacked off (or plateaued out, however you want to look at it).

This week shocked us back into reality. Everyone lost weight this week. I think we are all beginning to realize we have a week left in the initial competition. One week to lose all we can before the last weigh in and the moment of truth. Those of us in places 4 and up really have no chance of taking this competition at this point. But it's anyone's game if you consider the final weigh-in is still a month off. The problem is that we'll have one whole month to ourselves. No weekly weigh-ins to motivate or scare the hell out of us. No Scorekeeper eyeballing us as he tabulates our paltry performances. No scoreboard declaring our successes and failures to the entire office to ridicule or champion.

It really feels like a T.V. show -- like what those people on NBC's Biggest Loser must feel when they leave the relative comfort of the ranch and move into the real world where work schedules and kids and carbs and alcohol and sugar threaten to undermine all the work they've done for the last three months.

But let's not think about that until we have to. Until next week. Till then, it's rabbit food and water, early morning jogs and late night crunches. Oh, who am I kidding?