“Do you all remember when you got your last cell phone?” asked the 60ish woman dressed in purple tweed. “Did you know how to use it, or place a call?”

This time she got an answer out of the 30-odd women spread out among 15 or so rows of blue-plastic, armless chairs. “No,” said the crowd.

“Yes,” said me.

My lone response went ignored.

“Right, of course you didn’t,” the woman continued. “You had to read the owners manual.”

Right there I knew I was in trouble. I’ve never read an owners manual in my life; not for a coffeemaker, a cell phone, a video game—nothing. I’ve always just figured it out. Working an appliance is not like dismantling a bomb; it ain’t that difficult.

And neither is weight loss.

“Everyone turn to your Weight Watchers owners manual, and open up to page 60,” the woman said. “These are your guides to good health. Memorize them; they will really help you out.”

The guide was simple, and in my opinion, obvious. Drink lots of water, take vitamins, and eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. But these women were oooing and aaahhing as if they’ve never heard of “water” before.

“Remember, we are all a flock of geese,” she said. “At these meetings we fly in a v formation to support each other.” Geese? I am definitely not a goose.

“Now who lost some weight this week?” she asked. Five or six hands shot up immediately.

“I’ve lost 1.6 pounds!” one woman exclaimed.

“I lost 3.2 pounds!” another said.

One by one, the meeting leader handed out stars to “reinforce” the “positive behavior” of those who lost weight, dubbing one 50-ish woman “lead goose” for losing the most weight of the week. Apparently we were not only owners-manual reading geese, but we were also in kindergarten.

Over the course of 45 minutes, middle-aged women shared stories of eating a bag of Hershey Kisses in one sitting, gorging themselves on Pringles, and scarfing down pints of Ben & Jerry’s. One very overweight lady practically drooled on herself during a discussion of onion rings, as the meeting leader started talking about “red light foods.”

I’m sure you’ve figured it out, but just in case, a red light food is apparently something bad for you that triggers a food binge. And these ladies had a ton of them to discuss.

“How can we enjoy our red light foods without overeating?” the meeting leader asked. She was met with silence. Had the possibility of not overeating ever occurred to these people?

“Um, buy a 100-calorie pack?” one woman replied.

This was getting ridiculous, and I was getting annoyed. Just don’t eat 15 cookies people, it’s not that difficult! I couldn’t contain my inner voice any longer: “How about not eating out of the bag, and having just one?”

“Yes! Exactly!” the leader said. “Wow, this is your first day and you already know the answer! That’s so great!” Her praise was followed by a roaring round of applause.

Goose Faith was not amused.

It became very apparent that I was in the wrong place. It was like a freaking AA meeting. These women spoke of food like it was heroin. I was the thinnest person in the room by 50 pounds and the youngest by 20 years. My reason for wanting to lose weight is pure vanity. The women at the meeting have real, very serious, issues with food. Most were bingers with no concept of self control. They spoke of “obsessively thinking about food,” and “eating until stuffed.”

I just wanted to discuss smart choices at restaurants.

I do not need a chart of a smiling stomach at different levels of fullness to understand the difference between starving and stuffed. I do not need gold stars to get motivated to exercise; I got to kickboxing three times a week.

If there was one thing I did get out of the meeting, it was that my body could be a hell of a lot worse. It might not be perfect, but it isn’t in the same stratosphere as those ladies I spent an hour with.

I don’t think I’ll be going back. There is an online option you can do that tracks what you eat, which more conducive to my needs. This goose likes flying solo anyway.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Past life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.