Count the Cost BEFORE - Not After

Math. I was always good at it. There was even a time when I thought I should be an accountant - until I discovered what a dull life that would be.

I like numbers. Always have. They're like a story unto themselves. Two people can take the same numbers and come up with completely opposite conclusions. Don't believe me? Try listening to economists, politicians, and pollsters.

So much of life can be reduced to numbers and equations. I used to get into that kind of stuff, but then I found my mind isn't quite so beautiful after all. Deluded. Just not beautiful.

I prefer simple math to the complex equations. Perhaps because I prefer a simple life to one more complex. It's not that I don't care. It's more like wondering if it's all really worth the effort. Not sure it always is. Some things are. Most definitely. Not always easy to identify, though.

I've always prided myself on my ability to do basic arithmetic. Not much to be proud of, I know, but we all have to be good at something. It's frightening how many people can't do simple math. When I was in high school I took bookkeeping. (I think I've told this story before. If I have, please bear with me. I'm old.) There were four of us who led the way in the "practice set" - two quarters in which we pretended to be the bookkeeper for a small company. None of the four of us used the adding machines (pre-calculator days, folks). Then, one by one, members of our foursome became "tainted" with the machine. As that happened, the "sinner" would invariably fall behind - never to catch up. In the end there was just me. I never used them, and I finished a week ahead of second place. Not only that, but out of nearly two hundred students, I had the only perfect paper.

What a drag. To have achieved my fifteen minutes of fame at the age of seventeen doing a practice set for bookkeeping class. It's been all downhill since then, folks. Sigh.

So, with all of this brilliance in my head regarding numbers one would think I could so some basic arithmetic and save myself a headache. No. No such luck.

I could have done the addition, to be sure. I just didn't. So what was the arithmetic? Here is a small table of numbers. There are three columns. Five rows. For each row, multiply column A by column C. Then multiply column B by column C. Then total the results. What do the numbers represent? I will tell you after the math.

040.....1.0 .....06 .....240 ..... 06.0
060.....1.0 .....08 .....480 ..... 08.0
100.....1.5 ..... 12 ..1,200 .... .18.0
080.....4.0 .....02 .....160 ..... 08.0
035 ... 1.5 ..... 20 ....700 ... ..30.0
===..=== ..=== .==== .. ====
315 .....9.0 ... 48 ..2,780 .... .70.0

Now, the numbers which ultimately matter in this little exercise are the totals for the two rightmost columns: 2,780 and 70.0. What do they represent? Can you guess?

Well, I am on a supposedly serious quest to lose more than 100 pounds in less than two years. Been doing all right. Sometimes it's been hard, and other times it's been harder. The numbers above represent what happened yesterday.

I was hungry.

However, not wishing to be "bad" about my weight, I found some very low calorie, low fat items. The first column represents the number of calories PER SERVING of each of the five things I ate from noon until nine at night. The second column represents the amount of fat (in grams) PER SERVING. The third column is the number of servings in the package.

By multiplying the number of servings by the calories and fat, one gets the total amount of calories and fat for the ENTIRE PACKAGE. My diabetes doctor has told me that I should NOT be eating more than 2,000 calories in any day for any reason. A person my size (6'6") should have at least 20 grams of fat each day, but NEVER more than 40 or 50.

Note the totals: 2,780 and 70.0.

Can you guess how much of the contents of those five packages I ate yesterday afternoon and evening? Yep. I ate them all. Forty-eight servings of low-fat food. Wasn't I being good?

It was like Homer Simpson with his little wafer crackers. His daughter, Lisa, told him they were only 40 calories. Then he piled every kind of meat and cheese between two, ate them with relish, and congratulated himself for only taking in 40 calories.

Also kind of like this variety show from the 1970s I saw. This monster of a man stood before the audience extolling the wonders of weight watcher foods. He mentioned a tiny weight watcher pizza. "They're great! I had six of 'em for lunch."

The diabetes doctor told me I could have even "fatty" snacks - except for one thing: his read on me was that I had no willpower to stop once I started. Doctor reads pretty good. That's what doctors get paid the big bucks for. What do I get paid? Nothing in gold, silver, or spendable currency.

I get guilt. I know how to add. Now I have to do some more subtracting.

Sigh.