The Heavy by Dara-Lynn Weiss

Author:Dara-Lynn Weiss [Weiss, Dara-Lynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-54135-2
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

“You’re up about half a pound,” the third-string nutritionist lady noted pleasantly when Bea stepped on the scale.

“I don’t know if that reading is really accurate,” I interjected. “She usually wears leggings. Today she’s wearing jeans.”

“It’s okay,” the third-string nutritionist said. “Sometimes the scale goes up.”

“Well, yes,” I said defensively. “But in this case, I really do think it’s the fact that she’s wearing jeans.”

Upon arriving at the nutrition doctor’s office that March day, we’d been greeted by the nice but ineffectual third nutritionist. But she wasn’t alone. There was yet another new woman sitting in with her, apparently learning the ropes. This was the fourth person Bea, David, and I had met in this office. Yet another person who didn’t know us or our history but who was going to be privy to our weigh-ins and hear our personal details. For me, it wasn’t a big deal. And David seemed to take it in stride. But Bea was visibly withdrawn.

As Bea had prepared to step on the scale, I’d noticed that she was wearing jeans. Not legging-type jeans: real, heavy denim jeans with buttons and a zipper and pockets. I knew right away this was going to affect what the scale said, and I encouraged her to take them off before weighing in. She refused. Understandably, she didn’t want to take her pants off in a room full of people, including one near-stranger and one complete stranger.

In case you’re wondering, I’ll skip ahead a bit and tell you that I went home that night and got on the scale holding a pair of Bea’s leggings, then got on a second time holding the jeans. Yes, I really did this. And guess what? I was a pound heavier with the jeans. So my concern that the jeans weighed more than the leggings was not unfounded.

The mood had turned sour from the discouraging weigh-in, although we’d arrived feeling positive. I was proud of our new exercise regimen. We’d made it through our Mexico vacation with admirable restraint, more or less keeping to our daily and weekly targets despite loads of temptation. To lighten the mood, I changed the subject.

“We just got back from Mexico!” I announced.

“How was it?” the third-string nutritionist asked.

“Great,” I said. “Everyone was really awesome about staying on the program. Bea worked really hard and did a great job.”

“It’s okay. It can be really hard to eat right on vacation,” she said, her voice dripping with understanding. My blood pressure started to rise. Why was this woman not getting it?

“She did great on vacation. She actually should be commended for how she did. I really think it’s the jeans.”

“How did you do on vacation, David?” she asked.

Silently Bea walked out of the room.

She went into the waiting room and started putting on her shoes. I waited a few seconds for the nutritionist to stop talking to David, whose vacation food choices were really kind of beside the point. I expected she would follow Bea to the waiting room to talk to her privately, or at least call out to her and ask what was wrong.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.