All (Weight) Is Not Lost

     I was waiting to see my weight loss counselor, R, at my local Jenny Craig Center.  A young woman entered with a baby boy, and I began cooing and clucking at him.  The young woman confessed that she was trying to lose her baby weight.
     "That's when I started the program," I told her.
     She looked surprised.
     "How long ago was that?" she asked.
     "23 years," I said.
     Her face fell.
     "Oh!" I said, not wanting her to despair, "But I'm very close to my goal!"
     Just to be clear: I first tried Jenny Craig over 23 years ago, when I was trying to lose my baby weight after my first child was born.  I lost the weight quickly and kept it off.  I went back after my second child.  After that, whenever I'd creep up ten pounds, I'd visit my counselor, do exactly what she told me, and lose the weight.  In the last 20 years I've returned five or six times. Maybe seven. Eight at the most.
     Each time, I ask to see my counselor R who miraculously still works there.  The young skinny counselors come and go, but R, who is not young, and perhaps more importantly not skinny, remains.
     Some might find this ironic but I do not.  Middle aged, overweight women do not want to be told by a size 0 how full and satisfied we will feel after eating Greek yogurt.  Seriously, shut the fuck up.  When we meet with R, we know she feels our pain.
     On January 1, 2013, I once again made the New Year's resolution to lose ten pounds.  In spite of reduced portions, plenty of fish and veggies, and practically eliminating cake, on February 1 I weighed exactly the same.  I went to see R.
     "If we start now," she said, "you can have the weight off just in time for Pesach."
     We both laughed.  Passover is the most fattening holiday.  Everything we eat sits in our stomachs like lead.
     Sure enough, right on time, I visited R last week to weigh in and I had reached my goal.  After talking briefly about my maintenance program (brief because I could teach a class by now), R and I discussed what we were making for our Passover seders.
     "I've made seven kugels," R told me.  "One to bring to my sister-in-law, and the rest for friends.  Have you ever made a pineapple upside down kugel?  Oh my God, it's to die--first you put a layer of brown sugar, then you lay down the pineapple rings.  Inside each ring you put a maraschino cherry."
     R went on to describe each of the seven kugels including one with chocolate-orange Sabra liqueur and an apple kugel with every kind of dried fruit.  R is a fabulous cook.
     When I finally got home, my husband asked what had taken so long.  I told him.
     "You've spent the last six weeks eating bird food, and she is giving a cooking class on matzo kugel?  Don't you think that's odd?"
     I admitted that perhaps it was not the best weight loss strategy.  My husband questioned whether R was "well-suited" to be a weight loss counselor.
     "I love her!" I told him. "I LOVE HER!  She is the reason I keep going back to Jenny Craig!"
     "Yes," my husband said.  "I think she is."