Crash diet

I’ve been on a crash diet for three days. More like a head-on collision. You see I’ve been invited to a beach house with seven other ladies for two days. Unless I suddenly get a better weekend offer from the crowd bound for the Biggest Loser, I’m in trouble.

I should have gone the sensible route a month ago when I found out about the trip. But leftover Easter candy and ice cream all called out my name from their hiding places in the cupboard and freezer. Why let food go to waste when it can go to waist? And to be honest, it’s been raining a lot. I know you’re asking what rain has to do with it. Well, coats, dummy. I can hide anything under a jacket.

Four days ago the inevitable arrived. I went on a search in the closet for my swimsuit, and I swear it shrank two sizes since last summer. Whole parts of the bathing suit disappear in the ripples of my rolling hills figure.  I’m afraid any swimsuit would look like an itsy bitsy teenie weenie bikini on me.

I’m thinking a machete might be my best option.

In the past, I’ve tried every diet known to man — the vegetarian soup diet — probably how the soup Nazi started. The ice cream diet — my wrinkles had oozed caramel ripple. And the kelp diet — I wrapped myself around other people’s feet.

Just today I rinsed a grape so long to remove excess calories it shriveled to a raisin in my hand. But the chips and salsa keep doing me in. Okay, so maybe the bowl of Moose Tracks ice cream for breakfast. I had hours to burn off the calories and probably would have been okay, if it weren’t for the second helping.

I’m not totally without self control. I only ate half of the order of chili cheese fries with my burger for lunch. This morning I’d decided to meticulously jot down the calories for each food item I ate. When they reached eleven hundred, I’d stop. The cheese fries just used up all my calories I had available until 2012.

I’m off to the beach on Sunday afternoon. Do they have beaches for ladies over 55? Kind of like a senior menu. Maybe I’d fit in better there.

I was commiserating about belly fat with the GAP, the daughter who just delivered the Mouse, grandchild #3. She told me why the rich and famous look so trim after nine months of wearing an inflated beach ball molded below their boobs — they have a postpartum tummy tuck.

Doctors didn’t offer anything like that when I delivered babies. Basically we squatted, and carried the remembrances of those glorious months of heartburn, backaches, shortness of breath, in the excess flab we collected. My skin’s so droopy now I’m able to enhance my breast size by grabbing some of my gut and shoving it in my bra.

I try not to worry about my weight except when I’m awake. Heck, why worry at all? These women are my friends, not caddy and certainly not looking to make themselves feel better by gazing at my body in a swimsuit.

Wish me luck.