What would happen if everyone lost weight and were thin and beautiful? What if we all looked just the way we wanted to? Like Catherine Deneuve, Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron or Audrey Hepburn? Or Cary Grant, Brad Pitt or George Clooney?

Or would it be better, frankly, to be ourselves and look more like Rosie O’Donnell or Oliver Platt?

Would we be bored if we were perfect? Is being fat a thing to do?

I dunno. I’m not so concerned about looking like them as feeling like them. I’d like it if my job was to look as good as I could.

For those actor folks, maintaining their bodies is their livlihood. For me, I’m not so sure it matters. But I bet they feel pretty good. Maybe their days aren’t crammed with every mundane chore. I bet they don’t tuck into a chocolate sundae after work as a stress reliever. But who knows? Kirstie Alley did. And look what happened to her!

Is there a lesson in all of this?

I’ve been told that my posts here are self-depreciating, negative and a real downer.

Okay, but what if that’s the way I feel about my flab? What if I don’t like having pendulous breasts, thunder thighs and flap-in-the-wind triceps? Should I just love myself and say to hell with it?

I say, NO!

But I do plan to lighten up a bit. Seriously. Because even I’m tired of feeling so sick about my weight. I guess I’d just rather try to fix it and have some fun than whine.

Speaking of wine, I do love it so. And it loves me right back. I’m thinking seriously of cutting it out. Any thoughts out there?

It’s been a while since I last posted. My father died. If there’s one thing I think I’ve learned from him, both in life and in death, is to value your health and treat it with respect.

My father had lung cancer before I was born in 1961. He lost half a lung and was blasted with serious radiation. Thankfully I don’t have two heads, but I suppose one could sprout at any moment. In any case, although the last five years of his life were frankly shitty, I think he’d still sign up for the radiation based on the 40 years of good health he did have after treatment. Because of the radiation, at the end of his life he lost the use of his left arm and had lots of other medical problems. The point is, though, that he thrived after his cancer and led a pretty good life.

I remember my father exercising every morning on his electronic Exercycle — a Rube Goldberg-type contraption that had a seat that moves up and down and in the opposite direction from the pedals. My dad was a big guy, and at the time I thought he looked a little silly on his machine, but he definitely had the right idea. The fact that he lived to be 82 after a near fatal brush with lung cancer is a testament to the idea of trying to take care of yourself.

So now I’m back in the saddle, in both my mind and body. I want to lose this weight and exercise and eat right. I haven’t gained any weight over the last month or so, but I haven’t lost, either. Now it’s time to lose.

I’m feeling stronger today, and I can’t say why. I can imagine myself at 160 pounds, and today the goal seems manageable. I’d like to be free of this extra 45 pounds I’ve been carrying around for the last 15 years. This morning I felt a hip underneath the flab. It was encouraging. I can only dream of the other bones I might find underneath all this when I hit my goal.

The hardest thing will be to keep up my morale and desire once I get below 190. That’s 12.5 pounds from now. But from experience, I know that once I start fitting into a size 14 regular (that’s usually right around 190) my motivation starts go because I start thinking I look okay. This time, though, I’d like to go all the way.

Now that there’s no Paris vacation gumming up the works, I feel like I can really concentrate on my diet. I feel better when I eat well. Tonight it’s going to be stuffed green peppers and tomato sauce. I’m hungry now.

I’m back, not from Paris, but from Reno. My father has been gravely ill and I’ve been spending oodles of time up there. As a consequence I’ve cancelled Paris.

I feel selfish for saying this, and I suppose it is selfish in practice, but I find Reno a hard place to be. From a health perspective, it’s just plain bad for me. If ever there was a place where processed carbohydrates could be a major food group, Reno is it. Everytime I go I gain weight. This up and down has been going on for weeks since my Dad got really sick. And I’m sick of it.

Somebody wrote in and suggested that I just quit trying because I hate it. The truth is, though, that I don’t hate dieting. What I hate is not seeing immediate results. I know that’s irrational. Nothing is immediate when it comes to lifestyle changes. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I have the slow-going metabolism of a earthworm. So I hate the fact that all I have to do is eat a Cheeto and the pounds pile back on. Though I’ve come to like healthy food and honestly enjoy cooking it too, I still stumble and wish that the consequences weren’t quite so measurable.

So I don’t want to quit. I realized that upon spending time with my Dad in the nursing home. While he is seriously ill and it’s not his fault, he’s also not done a thing over the last eight years to help his health in the least. Now he’s basically immobile. He refuses therapy. He’s given up. I don’t want to. I want to be healthy.

The worst part about losing weight is that it takes forever. Now mind you, I didn’t put on this extra tonnange overnight, but the fact that it’s sticking with me so closely is mighty annoying. I understand that it will be a lifestyle change, continued effort and blah blah blah, but frankly, it’s just a pain in the ass.

The good part is that I do feel better, even if I haven’t lost that much weight. This morning I clocked in at 206.4, which is a grand total of five pounds since I first started this journey in July. Of course, I’ve gained and lost that weight twice since starting in July, so net net, I’m not really very far ahead. But I think those five pounds are really gone (I don’t think it’s water weight). Now that I’ve decided I’ve got to lose 50 pounds, I’m at 10 percent of goal. So that’s good.

But it’s so slow!!! What’s funny is that I don’t even mind counting points or cutting things out of my diet. What bugs is that it’s so slllllllloooooooooowwwwwwww. A day’s worth of effort doesn’t make a difference. It’s got to be a week. Three weeks. Ten years. I hate it.

So I’m back on the Weight Watchers program, counting points and actually losing weight. I’m so fat now that I fortunately get 26 points a day, which I can of couse supplement with the handy Flex points the program offers to weak-willed folks like me who are still hungry.

A week ago today, I weighed 209.8; this morning, 207.2. Which, for me, is pretty good, considering that there were two pieces of million-point banana cream pie thrown in to the plan over the weekend. I can only imagine that I would have done better had I not succumbed to the tasty glory of cream and pastry.

It feels good to be doing something, at last, with a prospective of success. Although it’s going to take a LONG time to lose the weight, and the progress will be slow, I feel positive that something is going my way.

I give up. I’m going to Weight Watchers. In person, live and dreadful. I’m going to listen to the leader cheer me on, absorb all the advice to eat sugar-free Jello and fat-free salad dressing.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to shed my 50 pounds of spare lard over the course of the coming year. Something has got to happen. Because I’m deeply fearful that I could turn into the 647-pound lady on the Discovery Health Channel. I suppose it’s kind of sick that I’m always watching some horrific fat story on television. What’s more, I’m looking forward to the debut of this season’s installment of the Biggest Loser on NBC. I think it’s because I see myself so clearly in all those fat people.

So I’m off to Weight Watchers. Oh boy. I now accept that I can’t do this on my own. I’m weak.

Is imagination a factor in motivation? Of course, you’ve got to be pretty committed to imagining fantastic things and wanting what you imagine. If you can’t really imagine it, can you create the motivation to achieve it?

As I’ve mentioned, I’m pretty unmotivated right now about weight loss. I understand intellectually that I need to lose weight, but I guess I just can’t really imagine what it would be like to really do it. I’d look better, and feel better, but clearly that’s not enough to make me really do what’s necessary to lose the lard.

This morning I set my alarm early with the intention of going for a long walk before breakfast. The alarm went off, I switched it off, rolled over and debated for 30 minutes whether I really wanted to go for a walk. In the end, I decided that my rest was obviously more important than my cardiac health, because I stayed in bed. Eventually I got up, ate an omelette and went to work.

So much for imagination and motivation. In practice, I’m lazy!

I’ve come to believe that I am an unmotivated person. I must be, because I’m pretty sure that I’m completely unmotivated to lose weight. Intellectually, I understand the need to part with the tonnage accumulated by years of over-indulgence and sloth. But emotionally, I must be attached to my lard. Heavy dinners, copious amounts of wine, injurious levels of chocolate are all mighty appealing.

Last night I made coq a vin for dinner. As I was frying up the salt pork (serious stuff!) I thought to myself: Some light dinner! I tried to redeem it by having a tasty green salad with my dinner. Yet there’s no getting over it. Coq a vin is not a diet food, no matter how much you try to tell yourself it’s only chicken with a little red wine. I enjoyed every bite, and I revisited every morsel as I weighted down the scale this morning.

Why is it that I can’t seem to get it through my skull that fattening stuff is … well … fattening? Is it because I like it? Is it because I’m an idiot? Is it because I have zero willpower? Is it because I’m deluded and think that my body will somehow miraculously use up all these calories while I park my capacious butt in front of the TV?

Or am I just unmotivated?

A day or two ago I watched this show called “Trash Can of Skin” on the Discovery Channel. The show profiled this English woman, who, through an unfortunate set of circumstances, ballooned up to 545 pounds. Then she lost more than 300 pounds. She was left with so much extra skin that she decided to go to surgeon in Kansas to have it all cut off. Literally. She underwent a procedure called a circumfrential body lift, and they sliced off about 35 pounds of extra skin and fat.

So that was really yucky to watch, and I had to leave the room to get a glass of wine to enable myself to finish the show. But by God, this gal was motivated. No matter what, she was going to get back her slim body, even if it meant going under the knife and never eating again. She had a lot more to lose than me. So ostensibly, her path should be much harder and mine should be a cake walk. (No pun intended.)

Of course, the difference between me and her is that she, for whatever reason, found the motivation in herself to lose the weight. After watching that show with one eye closed against the surgery, I’m fairly convinced that I may never be as motivated as she. I think I’ll go home and have some leftover Coq a vin for dinner.