Being that it’s the month of January, the official “Cease-All- Eating-Now-That-You’ve-Packed-On-A-Few-Winter-Pounds Month,” I have viewed approximately 3.2 million ads about weight loss, diet, fitness, and other general health messages. And then in the checkout line at the grocery store, I have to read that poor Jennifer Love Hewitt, that little sweetie from Party of Five, is spotted in a bikini by the paparazzi in Hawaii and is now considered chunky because you can’t see her ribs. The girl’s on vacation!!! Let her drink high-calorie Mai Tai’s and eat French toast for the love of Pete! (or for the love of Bailey if you were a Party of Five fan).

And then I see a commercial for Jenny Craig the other day with Valerie Bertinelli. In it, she looks great and she says something to the effect of “Well, I don’t look like I did back then”…and she flashes a photo of herself in tiny little jeans during her One Day at a Time days (Schneider, I so wish you and your handiness lived in my neighborhood by the way) and claims, “But I feel great now!” And cut to her today, having lost almost 40 pounds, with a more mature, yet fabulous shape. You go girl. And by the way Val, you were 18 back then! You shouldn’t look like that anymore!!!

Back in the 80’s, when I was about 10, I distinctly remember a commercial for Tab diet cola. I was totally and completely envious of that leggy blonde who was riding her 10-speed bike down a beachside road, wearing short-shorts and beaming ear to ear as men on passing bikes waved with giddy excitement as she whizzed past, taking swigs of Tab. I was so envious of her in fact, that one afternoon, I put on the shortest shorts I could find and headed for the fridge for one of my mom’s diet sodas (but she was out so I had to improvise with a plastic yellow cup filled with ginger ale). Then I took my dirty sneakers and my pale, stumpy little 10-year-old legs outside, got on my blue Schwinn and started to pedal down Magnolia Street. I held onto the handlebar with my left hand while my right hand firmly grasped the cup. I wanted to sit upright, so I could flip my hair around like the Tab girl. But instead, I had to bend down and steer the right side with my elbow as ginger ale splashed all over my arm every time I hit a bump in the sidewalk.

Tha-thump. Splash. Tha-thump. Splash. I think I abandoned my Tab girl reenactment after about two blocks.

No stranger to the magnetic force of the bathroom scale, I’ve spent many, many a year bemoaning the fact that I’ll just never weigh as little as those dang Miss America contestants. I’ve also faced the truth that nature has bestowed upon me legs that are more short speed skater than lifeguard. But that’s cool with me. Having watched my pregnant body not once, but twice, balloon to roughly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, the fact that I can fit into my pre-baby jeans is just short of miraculous. Even if it did take a loooong time and some serious kickboxing.

I think about that commercial from time to time though and hope that my daughter cares more about Gatorade than diet soda when the time comes. And if she comes up to me one afternoon and says “Mom, do we have any diet soda?”

I’ll say “No sweetie, Mommy gave that up a long time ago. Wanna go ride our dirt bikes out back?”