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Tuesday, February 2, 2010

The Weight Watchers cost-benefit analysis

It’s probably too early to do one, but so far I’ve paid a little less than $20 and lost a little more than 10 pounds. If it were just a matter of paying $2 a pound to take this weight off, I guess I’d say that’s well worth the price. The extra energy that comes with even a 10-pound loss can’t be replicated by caffeine, that’s for sure.

Paying money just to eat less and exercise more goes against every frugal fiber in my well-padded body. But I’ve tasked various committees of brain cells with this assignment numerous times over the years, and never had much success. So if I’m going to pay a subcontractor to orchestrate this process, it seems I‘ve picked a good one, who’s not only generating the desired results but teaching me exactly how the job is done. Eventually this could, and should, turn into a do-it-yourself project.

As for whether I’ve eaten $20 less worth of our family food supply, that’s harder to quantify. I did notice that the takeout pizza we got last week lasted longer -- there were still a couple of slices left 24 hours later, and that feels, well, unprecedented. A jar of cheese dip that usually wouldn‘t last more than a day or two is still hanging around 10 days later. (It‘s amazing how long that stuff can last if you only apply the 2-tablespoon serving size, rather than dunking directly into the jar.) The funny thing is, I didn’t think I was the only one who scarfed cheese dip when it ventured onto the premises. But this experiment indicates otherwise.

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