A Corrected Version for Why We Diet

From time to time, Mama Lai will check what I post on the blog to make sure I'm not misquoting her or jeopardizing my chances for marriage.  Mama Lai thinks sometimes I give the wrong impression or misunderstand her drive to get me to lose weight:

"You think your journey for weight loss ends when you get married?  No such thing!  This is a lifetime thing, a lifestyle thing.  Yes, you have to look good to find someone good, but you want to be healthy for the rest of your life!  There is no letting yourself go when you get married!  Besides, that is dishonest."

Outside Furniture Inside

Mama Lai and Papa Lai bicker as old married couples do.  One day, on a whim, Papa Lai went and bought a patio chair.  Only, instead of putting it on their patio, Papa Lai decided that it should be the office chair for the family computer.  Papa Lai wanted Mama Lai's opinion, which he almost regretted upon asking:

"That is a patio chair.  It is an outside chair inside my house!  It is a chair meant to be sitting comfortable outside."

Papa Lai countered:

"That is why I bought it!  It is comfortable.  Why can I only be comfortable outside?  I want to be comfortable inside too!"

 

Capacity for Love

After reading in the newspaper that a woman may have microwaved her newborn, Mama Lai said:

"You know you don't know how much you can love someone until you have children. But human beings are maybe not meant to know everything.  There are some things that some people are not meant to experience."

Uncle Says Out of Time

One of my uncles from Mama Lai's side of the family accompanied me to the airport and spent our 2 hour long car ride puzzling over why my generation seemed to reluctant to get married (his son, my cousin, who is my age has yet to propose to his girlfriend prolonging my uncle's fervent wait to have grandchildren from his only son).  Reminding me of my age, my chatty uncle said:

"You know if you wait until your 40 years old to get married, you might as well not marry.  There's no point.  You might as well just enjoy the rest of your life because any of the benefits of marriage will no longer exist.  YOU ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME."

Dieting Visualiziation Technique

Mama Lai challenged me to take a big bite of food and then spit it out. Mama Lai said:

"Memorize what that looks like.  Nowadays, they make food too pretty.  Think about that.  That's how food looks when it gets into your stomach.  Gross yourself out."

A Pound of Tears

Under the Mama Lai diet regimen I've lost over 15 pounds.  Before I move out, Mama Lai cautioned me:

"For every pound you gain back, I will shed ten big tears.  Think about that before every bite of food you take."

Thongs

For most of Mama Lai's adult life, she had only worn one kind of underwear, the very conservative and functional sort and always in solid colors.  When her two daughters went away to school, the holiday laundry became filled with all sorts of underwear of all shapes, sizes, cuts and colors and prints.  The thong was what captured Mama Lai's curiosity and thought the design was cleverly economical and would be perfect for a hot summer day.  After various consultations with Duckie about material and where to find, Mama Lai went and bought her very first thong.

When she got home, Mama Lai put it on and got as far as the hallway and yelped:

"What!  What is this!  You can feel it!  No.  No, I don't think so."

And that was the last time Mama Lai ever came near a thong.   And whenever she comes across one in the store or in her children's laundry, she shakes her head in disbelief that women, especially her two daughters, would wear something so uncomfortable.