Losing weight for all the wrong reasons, right?

Five years ago, I walked into a Slimgenics storefront and sat down across from a counselor. (Spoiler for future Slimgenics diet review: I’m still fat.) She asked me a bunch of questions, including why I wanted to lose weight.

I told her the truth: I needed to take some pressure off my knees for karate. You see, I was about to test for brown belt, and my knees just couldn’t take it.

She couldn’t handle that answer. I guess her form didn’t have “martial arts” on the checklist.

What about your doctor? Your kids? Do you have a special event coming up?

No. Other than my brown belt test.

How about diabetes? To fit into a swim suit?

Brown. Belt. No?

In the end, I assented to one of her suggestions. I don’t even remember which one.

A few weeks ago, I signed up for yet another weight loss plan. I know, definition of insanity, yadda yadda. All I can say in my defense is that it’s a plan I’d never tried before.

I sat in another office surrounded by success stories from people who aren’t me and answered what seems like the exact same list of questions every weight loss counselor has to ask, including my reasons for wanting to lose weight?

Other than the fact I’m about to need my own zip code? I want to be able to wear cute clothes.

Clothing designers seem to think that women my size and age want to wear clothes cut from circus tents. Not just the amount of fabric. I know it takes a lot to cover a body like this, but the designs. I mean, seriously, how many women can there actually be who want to dress like Mrs. Roper?

The realization that it was time to make a change hit me while I was standing in Kohls holding a size 1X mummu-like top, gazing longingly at the beautiful Vera Wang shirts and skirts just across the aisle. I drooled over those clothes like a dog staring at a piece of steak. Oh, I could have tried them on. Sometimes, I can juuuust squeeze into them, but that only makes it worse, because I can’t live my life without breathing, and they usually look like shit anyway. You can’t squeeze a two pound sausage into a one pound casing and expect anything good to come of it.

I was tired of having nothing but flowing, sequined, ugly clothes to wear, so I looked for a diet I haven’t failed at yet.

And the cute young woman who has never worn anything larger than a size six asks me why I want to lose weight.

To wear cute clothes.

What about your health? She asks. Do you want to be around longer for your kids? Do you want to look sexy for your husband?

My husband The Fat Samurai? He’s fine with me the way I am. No, I want to wear cute clothes. I explain the Mrs. Roper thing to her, which requires a remedial lesson on Three’s Company, because she’s about ten years too young to have ever seen the show, and this is getting way off topic. Just tell me how much it costs to lose weight your way and what’s different about your plan from all the others that haven’t worked before.

Is it really that hard to let the thing that got me in the door genuinely BE the reason I want to lose weight?

I want to lose weight. I want it badly enough, I’m willing to dramatically change the way I eat, and pay you for the privilege of letting you tell me how to do it. Why do I also have to be doing it for your reasons?

What’s the right reason to lose weight? The reason that works for you.

What’s the wrong reason? Anything else, no matter what the little boxes on someone's form say.