ArcaMax

I've lost a little bit of weight lately, and when people ask how, I tell them it's easy.

You just cut out dairy, gluten and processed sugar, and severely limit caffeine and alcohol. Just like magic, you'll almost instantly lose all pleasure in eating -- life, even! -- and each meal becomes a brief, joyless affair. Then, add in about seven workouts a week, five of them cardio and two weight training. The exercise, plus traveling to the gym, and laundering and changing into and out of your gym clothes, will take up almost all time you previously spent eating crackers or scrolling through videos of dogs jumping into swimming pools or binge-watching the 800th prestige drama to be unveiled to fanfare on a screening platform that you've never heard of before. In short, doing any number of wonderful things that apparently are bad for you.

If you're anything like me, the result will be that you'll no longer worry that your dryer keeps shrinking your clothes, but when you look at the scale, you'll be disheartened to learn that you've dropped roughly the weight of your average Pomeranian.

It wasn't dramatic and it wasn't easy, is what I'm trying to say. I know that most folks, women especially, like to pretend there was no effort involved in their weight loss, like they turned the thermostat up an extra degree at night and the weight just melted off as they slept. The only thing more embarrassing than needing to lose weight is trying to do it, I guess.

I've been told that I could just go on Ozempic or some similar drug, but I don't have diabetes, and not only do I not want to spend the price of a monthly payment on a very decent new car to get it without insurance, but I also want to wait and see what the long-term prognosis is for all these Ozempiccers. They're my guinea pigs, and if I still need to lose weight 10 years from now, I'll consider it. I'm old enough to remember other magical weight loss fads, things like medical diet shakes and appetite suppressants that are no longer on the market for extremely good reasons, and I'd like to avoid being in any medical journals, if I can.

Not that I have a problem with anyone who's on Ozempic or any other medication for weight loss. Nope! If you want to get your prescription drugs from the same place you get your Himalayan salt scrub pedicures, that's perfectly fine with me. I'm not one to judge.

But if you're going to lose weight, using Ozempic or any other method, you should know that it will make some people angry with you.

"Ugh, you're ordering from the lighter side of the menu," they'll say, rolling their eyes, as if they're the ones with black coffee and egg white omelets while everyone else enjoys eggs Benedict and mimosas.

You'll also have to justify your dietary choices, explaining that you don't have celiac disease or milk protein intolerance or some rare cane sugar allergy but that you're just trying to cut out processed foods and this makes it easier. I mean, you can find dairy-free, wheat-free, processed-sugar-free cookies, but I dare you to eat too many of them.

No thanks, your stomach will respond when you offer it a second almond-meal-and-carob brownie.

Instead of butter and sugar, it's made with avocado oil and banana! you'll say, temptingly.

Pass, your stomach will reply.

Also keep in mind that you must pick a diet and exercise regimen that's at least mostly sustainable for the long term. That's why I occasionally eat pizza and drink wine, because any food plan that can't abide a periodic indulgence is one that I'll abandon. I'm going on vacation soon and some crazy part of me considered putting my free weights into the trunk and driving them to the beach with us, just in case I wanted to get some Arnold presses in between my day drinking.

"Hahahaha, nope," the smarter part of my brain replied. "You're doing great, but don't get cocky. You're still the same person."

That might be the biggest challenge of all, understanding that weight loss doesn't make you smarter or more motivated or an earlier riser or more put-together. It just makes you thinner.

No matter how much weight you lose, there's always some of you left behind.

You're just getting rid of an extra Pomeranian. And there's plenty more where he came from.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

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