Pages

Monday, July 11, 2011

A Pound is a Pound is a Pound

I went to the grocery store today and when I was carrying my groceries into the house I thought, these sacks are so heavy, I was carrying three at a time ( I am lazy) and they weighed about forty pounds total. After I put my haul away, I started thinking about weight, and how I am carrying around three grocery bags of extra weight around daily, no wonder I am tired. (Actually, truth is I am carrying about 5 fully packed grocery bags of extra weight around daily.) So that lead me to ponder some more about what a pound feels like, about what three pounds feels like and what five pounds feels like.


The jar of sauce above weighs one pound. I picked it up and thought, that is not something I would want to carry around all day. Try it yourself, pick out something in your pantry that weighs a pound and hold it. A pound is pretty substantial when you pick it up and hold it for a few minutes, so why do I get so angry with myself when all I lose is a pound in a week?

This innocent looking carton of chicken broth weighs three pounds and it will get your attention if you drop it on your foot, don't ask how I know that, but anyway, I lost three pounds last week and I was angry about it! Funny, when I just think about weight as numbers and not actual "weight" it seems like three pounds is nothing, but it is SOMETHING, just ask my foot!

Five pounds of flour, it's just five pounds, but I can't even tell you how heavy that sucker is when you hold it for five minutes. If I strapped that on my body right now and had to wear it all day I would know it was there, but losing "just" five pounds never sounded like much to me especially when I have much more than five pounds to lose, but I realize now after holding the flour that a pound is a pound is a pound and they all matter.

Next time you are lugging in the groceries, pulling a heavy suitcase through an airport or grabbing a gallon of milk out of the refrigerator, think about how heavy they were and ask yourself if you would want to carry them around all day, all week or for years? My answer is no!