I know what you're thinking, Mister Man!!!!!

Tonight the Biggest Loser Fredericksburg is meeting at my house for the first time. I have been pigging out all weekend in preparation for the weigh-in. Is that cheating? I really am making myself ill, which will make eating less and eating more healthy much easier. Olivia's mother is coming tonight. She asked Olivia if she should bring a pizza or something to the meeting. Olivia told her, "It's not the Last Supper!"

I don't really have that much weight to lose. Probably about 20 pounds or so. But isn't that last 10 or 20 pounds supposed to be the hardest to lose? So this challenge should be very good for me. Jonathan told me once he thinks people like me are the most frustrating to observe. He said if you see someone who is very overweight you may think to yourself, They must be so discouraged. They've probably tried everything. Not to mention it takes a lot of guts to march into the gym and work out if you are extremely overweight. But someone like me, who only needs to lose a little bit, he looks at and thinks, You lazy bum! Why don't you get off of your butt and lose those last 10 pounds? It wouldn't take much time or effort to get your ass in shape! (I am putting rather harsh words in his mouth, but that I am paraphrasing what he told me.)

I told him I can see his point, but if I do see someone who is very overweight working out, I am so proud of them! I saw a woman at the gym who was very overweight and she was walking on the treadmill, and I had to fight the urge to run over to her and give her a hug and say, "Good for you! Way to go!" But of course I didn't. He says he feels that way about everyone in the gym, which I took to mean he would be very proud of his wife if she would get off her butt and go to the gym. I take everything he says as a hint that I should go to the gym, actually. Whether he means to hint or not, I think it is a constant outgoing prayer generating from our house: Please, God, make my wife give a crap about her body. Make her go to the gym. Keep her from getting fat. From letting herself go. From wearing those same old t-shirts and jeans day in and day out. Sometimes I think I see it,this prayer, in a big cartoonlike conversation balloon over his head, floating out of our house and up into the sky.

Come to think of it, maybe this prayer is coming from every husband, everywhere...