Proud

It’s 7:50 on a Tuesday night and I’m getting nervous. We’ve finished the dinner dishes and my husband is back in the kitchen after taking out the trash and the recycling. He’s warning me that it’s getting chilly and the meteorologists are probably right about a frost tonight. I nod my head and murmur appropriate responses, but my eye is drawn to the clock. 7:53.

I try not to let him know the extent of my addiction, but the truth is I am a “Biggest Loser” junkie. There -- it’s out. Every week I hear those lyrics, “What have you done today to make you feel proud?” and I well up like a fool.

I know. I know. The whole production has been manipulated to suck me in. It begins with those humiliating before pictures that I guess are meant to shock us (how can they be that big), reassure us (well at least I’m not that big) and warn us (but you will be that big unless you put down this box of ho-hos). Next we see glimpses of dangerously grueling workouts complete with sweat, temper, and tears. I envision a team of medics standing around the perimeter of the gym holding defibrillation paddles just in case. We watch as they make phone calls to loving families they’ve left behind and break down in front of millions of people. There is no sugarcoating. This work is hard, hard, hard. Who would subject themselves to it?

But we’re so glad they do. We get to test drive the victory without the pain. (The treadmill is here in the room with me; it is dusty.) Mixed up in the doubt and insecurity, there’s a little hint of steel. They’ve hit rock bottom and it’s now or never. And the dream is so ridiculously ambitious it seems outrageous that an Everyman should even attempt it, let alone believe in it.

That’s why we watch of course. If the most unlikely heroes can beat the odds, we know there’s hope for us too. As the show winds down to its conclusion the trainer says “make impossible your favorite word.” The crowd roars. A new winner is crowned, and as the confetti falls down on her mega-watt smile, the theme song kicks in and I wipe the tears from my face. Wouldn’t it feel good today to be that proud?