The whole world knows what I’ve been up to for the last three months! Take a look, one horrifying look. Yes, folks, it’s fat ol’ me again. Porker city. You know that fifty-four pounds I lost? Well, I found it again. Yup. All fifty-four pounds—with about ten to boot. Gasp! How could I? I ate like a pig—what do you think!?
In all fairness, I must give myself a little credit. By the end of May 1985, I’d lost 54 pounds, bringing me down to a paltry 200. I felt almost cute and sexy. Didn’t matter that I weighed one-tenth of a ton! Compared to 250, I felt cute and sexy, and this is my diary, so I can write what I want.
I purposely became pregnant around the middle of May, still trying to be careful of what I was eating. When I lost the baby at the end of June, it mentally signaled the immediate end of my glorious diet. I didn’t lose another pound after that, but I give myself credit for keeping off most of those rotten fifty pounds for the next six months.
I was thrilled when I became pregnant again. But woe is me. The scale crept up daily. Weekly freak-outs. Monthly horrors. How could I do it to myself? During the first four months of pregnancy, I was constantly nauseated. I felt as if I had the flu for 120 days. That whole time I kept thinking, “If I eat the right thing, a sandwich, a cracker, some vanilla ice cream, something will settle my stomach.” Ha! I was almost right. It settled in my stomach—and my thighs and my chin and my upper arms.
Then I pulled out all the stops. I ripped them out and threw them away. Those stops were nowhere to be seen! When I was no longer nauseated—and the stops were no longer in existence—look out, we are talking bingeing here. Candy bars nearly every day. Then I discovered a marvelous, new stomach antacid—Mint Love-Its. If you have never eaten a Love-It ice cream bar, you are in for a delight. And Mint Love-Its are especially wonderful because everyone knows that mint settles your stomach. Besides, it’s the same shape as Rolaids, only 100 times bigger and chocolate-coated. Ah! Such rationalization. Such self-deception.
I declare, here and now, on this eighteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty six: I am putting on the brakes. I am coming to a screeching halt. I declare myself officially back on my diet, exercises and all. It doesn’t matter that I am six months pregnant. Can’t I do a leg lift or swing my arms in a circle? Can’t I give up candy, ice cream, and pastry? Does my baby require chocolate to develop normally?
This baby is due in exactly three months, and I will lose no less than thirty pounds. I’ll weigh no more than 235 pounds when I deliver this baby. As dreadful as that sounds, it’s forty pounds less than the last time I delivered a baby. I’m going to win this war. Before I’m through, every candy bar invented, every chocolate chip created, every ice cream cone scooped up, will surrender. Carrying white flags, they will march before me and bow down and admit that I have won, that I am their master, at last!
I just read this entry to Allen. Considering my gross obesity and my pregnant condition, I laughingly asked, “After the way I have described myself, can you think of anything you’d rather do than go to bed with me?” Allen, with little hesitation: “Yeah, I’d rather have a Mint Love-It.”