Lighter
Honest weight stories: the years of starting over, the doctor visits, the plateaus, and what finally made the line on the chart keep going down.
“I've lost and gained the same weight so many times I'm embarrassed to try again.”
The series, in order
Thirty-one pounds, one spreadsheet
An accountant who had lost and regained the same weight for a decade tries one more time, with his doctor and a spreadsheet. The number on the scale mattered less than the number he checked before he ever ordered.
Month two of a flat line
Six good weeks, then the scale stopped moving and stayed stopped. An accountant who had quit at this exact spot before finds out he's been reading the wrong line.
Four recipes, cooked well
An accountant with two hundred saved recipes and a kitchen table buried in client folders sets off his smoke alarm one February night. The neighbor who knocks has a better idea: four dishes, cooked until they're boring.
The new chart's first tax season
For eleven years every March showed up on Leo's spreadsheet as a peak. The first spring after he finally kept the weight off, the goal was a flat line, and a client arrived with the same tin of cookies she'd brought him for a decade.
More from Lighter
Airplane seatbelt extenders and the quiet ask
A court reporter who can take down anyone's words couldn't get one sentence out in row 23. The flight to meet her first grandchild, and the one she took a year later.
I've bought the same jeans in four sizes
A middle-school art teacher opens the store's app to reorder her favorite jeans and finds ten years of starting over in the order history. What she did instead of buying the next size up.
The doctor's pause before she said the number
A city bus driver spent fifteen years joking his way through the weigh-in and stepping off the scale facing the wall. Then his doctor needed half a second to find her words.
The wedding photo I cropped myself out of
At Thanksgiving, a seven-year-old points at the wedding photo on the fridge and asks whose hand is on the groom's shoulder. It belonged to the best man, and he'd cropped the rest of himself out.
Why I stopped telling anyone I was starting again
A pediatric nurse announced five fresh starts to everyone she knew, then watched them all politely stop mentioning each one. The sixth time, she told her doctor, her wife and a dinosaur sticker.