Recently my stepdad came home and told my mother all about some co-worker who had lost 50 pounds on the low-carb diet. Mac thought that if that guy could eat low-carb and lose weight, then he could, too. My mother agreed to be a good wife and try the low-carb diet with Mac because it's difficult to diet and even more so if the people with whom you live aren't dieting as well.
Mother cleared every sweet, piece of bread, potato, and milk out of the house. The first day on the low-carb foods is tolerable. You think, "Man, this easy. I can eat all the fried foods I want, and I love salads. I can do this." But by day three or four, the withdrawals begin. The cravings for carbs hit full force. The cravings are so intense that you would eat a whole loaf of bread if given the chance. As my stepdad stated, "I never knew how much I liked bread until this diet." Even with the intense cravings, Mother and Mac remained true to their dieting, Mother making sure that Mac ate only the things he was supposed to eat by preparing all of his meals.
About two and a half weeks into the diet, Mac began bragging about the 13 pounds that he had already lost. To hear him tell it, he was practically wasting away to nothing. He needed to buy new clothes. Mother said that was all he would talk about, and he would ask her how much weight that she had lost. How dumb can a man be? Is there an epidemic of dumb males going around, or what? Everyone knows that inquiring about weight is not a good question to ask a woman, especially your wife. A man loses weight a lot quicker than a woman does. It sucks, but it's genetics.
After a few days of listening to Mac's gloating, my mother decided that she had had enough. While peeling apples at my mother's house, Mother confessed her irritation to me and my sister. She had decided that she was "going to fix his smart ass." As Tracy and I sat there, laughing and listening to her plans, I thought to myself, "Poor Mac hasn't a chance in hell." Hannibal could have used my mother's war tactics against Rome. She would have made those Romans quake in their sandals.
My mother intentionally sabotaged Mac's diet. Lucky for her that he's lazy and gullible. Without him having a clue, she replaced the low-carb milk in the low-carb container with whole milk. She gave him fruit to eat that she told him was low-carb and real Reese's peanut butter cups instead of the low-carb version. The low-carb ice cream was replaced with real ice cream, and the low-carb jelly was replaced with real jelly. Within a week Mac had gained 5 pounds back of the 13 he had lost, and he ceased to brag to Mother to her satisfaction.
Yes, my mother can be evil sometimes, but it's evil at its best. She's always coming up with fantastic ideas for paybacks. She never ceases to amaze me. I'm proud to be her daughter, and I hope to one day to aspire to her level of genius. Poor Bill. LOL!
Anyone else ever been on a diet with another person and that person rubbed it in your face that he/she was losing more rapidly than you? Or have you ever just grown fed-up with someone's bragging? Did you do anything about it?
