Lost and Found

So I have this new favorite website, it is http://www.loseit.com/.  Basically it is a tool to help a person lose weight.  You enter your height and current weight, and your birthdate, and how much you want to lose.  It sets up a calorie budget for you and you enter all the food you eat and the exercise that you do.  I love keeping track of things, making lists and checking them twice, so this is right up my alley.

I was briskly striding along through the woods this morning, thinking proudly about how I was going to enter my exercise minutes, and this led to thinking about how people talk about losing and gaining weight.  Funny, when a person doesn't have something, and then it shows up, she says that she "found" it.  But we don't ever say, "Oh, I found two pounds last week!"  "Finding" sounds like you were intentionally looking for it, and I know that is not the case with me and my pounds. 

The word "gain", when used with a unit of weight, doesn't sound like a person made any effort in the acquisition of the poundage.  I was pondering that as I swiped at the cobwebs in my path, and I thought of how to say "gain" in other languages.  GANAR, in Spanish, commonly means to win or to earn, as does GAGNER in French, and GUADAGNARE in Italian.  To "earn" pounds is a much more appropriate term, as you actually have to do something to get them.  For example, I ate all the Pad Thai on my plate the other night and earned 1.5 pounds.  It makes it sound like I deserved them, which I probably did.

Let's look at losing pounds.  To lose sounds careless, or accidental.  Let me tell you, I do not accidentally lose pounds.  I work my rear off (pun intended).  I would like to find a more appropriate word - one that indicates that I made an effort.  After my 50 minutes of brisk walking, I sat down at the computer and read through various entries of the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, and moved on to the thesaurus.  I passed up mislay, forfeit, scrap, cast off, abandon, abdicate.... none convey the hard work it takes to get rid of the pounds.  I haven't found the right word yet, but when it surfaces, I'll be sure to let you know.