Excerpt

Want a free sample before you order the entire meal? Snack on the excerpt below.

“Wow, you look really great!” my dental hygienist said as I stared into the light hovering above me like an alien spaceship. Visiting the dentist was like being probed by aliens.

“Yeah, I’ve lost a lot of weight,” I replied, resting my clasped hands gently on my stomach.

Two years ago I had grasped my hands tightly together as gravity pulled my heavy arms in opposite directions down the steep slope of my belly. Today they lay relaxed on my slightly rounded stomach even when I released my grip.

I noticed,” the hygienist said.

My dental care provider had been very tactful. She hadn’t directly addressed my weight but had left the door open if I wanted to enter the room of that particular conversation. Smooth. They must have taught that technique during “Small Talk 101″ in dental school, where they also covered how to make conversation with people with a dozen cotton swabs stuck in their gums.

“How much weight have you lost?” she asked as she reached for a shiny tool on her tray.

“Um. . .” I rolled my eyes upward as if the response was written on the bottom of my eyelashes. The answer to this question kept changing, and I couldn’t remember what the proper number was this month. My starting weight of 372 minus my current weight of 197 would make it . . .

“One hundred and seventy-five,” I replied, proud that I could do the mental math. “I weigh about 195 pounds now.” I sounded like such a liar. That number was absurd. How could I have been able to walk around with that much extra weight? I could barely carry my TV set up the stairs. The last two years must have been a fever dream occurring in a diabetic coma after I’d finally eaten too much frosting straight from the jar. When I’d only lost twenty to thirty pounds, I’d told everyone from the janitor to the deli waiter. Now I’d lost so much that it was becoming uncomfortable to mention. It was freakish. It sounded like I was bragging. I’d been complimented about my weight loss so frequently by friends, family, and blog readers that I’d reached a saturation point. I didn’t feel a need to fish for positive reinforcement anymore.

“Wow,” she said with eyes wider and rounder than the mirror tool she held in her hand. “That’s amazing! That’s more than I weigh! You should be proud,” she said as she continued to pick plaque off my gum line.

“Thanks,” I mumbled without moving my jaw. It had been about two years since I’d popped a can of soda pop that didn’t have the word “diet” on it. My body mass index now qualified me as overweight instead of obese. It made sense that the dental staff would be particularly impressed by my transformation. They only saw me every six months, so it was like they were viewing time-lapse photography without time actually lapsing. They saw me in a strobe light that flickered every six months.

I was getting better at these exchanges about my weight. They weren’t that different from all the other scripts I practiced in life. When someone said “How are you doing today?” in the hallway I’d reply, “Just fine!” even if I wanted to crawl back into my bed and drool on the pillows. If someone congratulated me on my weight loss, I’d just say thanks and smile. People were rather predictable. There were only so many ways they reacted to my metamorphosis.

I preferred it when people simply said I looked good without specifically mentioning my weight. I could look great for many reasons-because I got a haircut, because I was wearing a cute blouse, or because it was a sunny day and I felt happy. Someone who said, “You look great since you lost all that weight,” was implying I had not looked so great before. It was as close as you could come to building a time machine and traveling back in time to insult me.

The hygienist finished scraping my teeth and set the tool down in favor of the electric polisher and a tray of polishing paste. “You know, I would never have guessed you weighed 195. You look a lot thinner than that. Mint, strawberry, or pina colada?”

Want to know whether I chose mint, strawberry, or pina colada? You’ll have to buy the book to find out!