My Onion Pie

So, here's a fun fact: if you chop up a very strong-smelling onion and put the remaining pieces in a sandwich bag in the fridge, after a few days all the food in the fridge will taste like onion. It's true! Tonight, I decided that I was depressed and wanted something "good" to eat. So, I got a nice big piece of Costco apple pie. But, before I finish this, I have to tell you what led up to this slice of potential goodness.

This morning, a nurse came to my house to take my blood and urine and all that good stuff so I can get a life insurance policy. We had already tried this on Saturday, and the nurse was totally chill. She didn't weigh me, but she let me tell her what I weighed: 264. I was honest too. I physically can't tell a lie. I start to get shaky and it eats at me until I finally come clean. Anyway, she wrote down a "summer weight" as she called it of about 255. I wasn't going to complain. But, then she tried to get blood out of me and my veins are notorious for being so tiny, they are almost impossible to find. I think they are the only things on me that can be described as tiny. She poked me three times and was unable to succeed in getting blood. So, she told me another nurse would come and take my blood this week.

This nurse showed up this morning at 7:30. She is one of those women who is probably 50 years old (you can usually tell by their hands) but is desperately trying to hold on to her youth through plastic surgery and bleached hair and daily gym workouts. Admittedly, she was wearing a really cute outfit, but her lips could battle Angelina Jolie's, and she told me she had been at about five different doctors' offices over the past month to "fix her deviated septum." Uh-huh. Isn't that what Rachel Green said on Friends, too? Deviated septum my cottage-cheesy-butt.

Anyway, she pulled out her dreaded scale and set it on my kitchen floor. I heaved a deep sigh and took off my shoes (like that will help) and stepped on it. 273.6. My jaw dropped to the floor. I almost crumpled up into a ball right there next to the cat food and the dining room table. I turned to her and tried to say, without sounding too desperate, "Um, I think your scale is off. My scale reads 264 and this one is almost ten pounds more."

She said, "Hmmm...I don't think it's off." So, she stepped on it while explaining how she'd been in all the doctors' offices (this is why I found out she had her deviated septum worked on) and had been weighed over and over, so she would know if it was off.

"Nope," she said. "124.6. Huh. At the doctor's office I weighed 127." She was my height, people. 5'8".

I seriously wanted to smack her. Oh, and she had her shoes on. Instead, I smacked her inside my head...in fact, I may have pushed her like a playground bully in my head, sandbox and all. In reality, I just said, "Oh. Okay."

The rest of the day kinda sucked. I've been trying not to dwell too much on how I need to go on a "diet" because I really want to make this a lifestyle change. I want to be able to stay at a healthy weight for good, but it's really hard to change that mindset. It's also really hard to lose weight if you aren't tracking your food and exercise. At least, that's what I've been finding over this last week...

So, tonight after dinner, I decided that I would show that nurse! I would eat a dang piece of pie and I was going to enjoy it too. But, divine intervention showed me the light. Someone inspired me to put a baggie of chopped onions in the fridge. The pie tasted like onion. I don't know if any of you have ever tried onion-apple pie, but let me be the first to tell you...it's not good. And, dude, it was a half of the pie left! From Costco! Those things are huge, and they are not cheap. It kills me to throw food away, but this one had to be done. I even tried to choke down a few bites, but to no avail. I. Threw. Away. The. Apple. Pie. Holy crap.

Moral of the story is this: don't compare yourself to other women (or anyone). Each of us is unique and fighting our own battles. Mine is my weight. Maybe hers is something I could never have handled. Also, a really great way to stop yourself from eating sweets is to store them with a bag of really strong-smelling onions. Try it. You'll thank me later.