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Thanks to hot flashes, my sweat glands work harder than Hollywood's plastic surgeons. So doesn't it make perfect sense that if you produce enough sweat to power a nuclear reactor, you are losing weight? 
At least it made perfect sense at 2 a.m. as I leaped out of bed to turn on the fan, turn off the heat and tear off all the covers.

"That's it!'' I cried. "Menopause is the answer!''

"Huh? What? Give me a blanket,'' my husband said. "'I'm freezing."

"Roll over,'' I said. "It's just a bad dream.''

"You have no idea,'' he mumbled and tried to cover himself with ruffly pillow shams.

The next morning, I was ready to attack the mall and try on smaller clothes, completely ignoring the fact that my old clothes fit the same as before. But nothing will stop a woman - from the largest to the smallest - if she thinks she's found a way to drop a few pounds without trying.

Just ask my sister. We spent years trolling the diet world together.

We did the Beer-and-Bananas Diet. We lost no weight, but giggled all day. We did the Eat-All-Your-Calories-By-11 A.M.-Then-Starve-All-Day-Diet. That lasted until noon on the first day.

We ordered "diet candy'' (remember chocolate "AYDS?") and ate the whole box in 48 hours. It was supposed to last four weeks. We almost bought a plastic suit that hooked to a vacuum and promised to make you buff while you cleaned. We wanted smaller thighs but not so badly we'd do more housework.

And after all that, I thought, it turns out there is going to be an upside to being a human inferno.

I explained my theory at breakfast. "Every night I sweat. Every day I sweat. It's gotta pay off,'' I said. My husband looked confused.

"Let me get this straight. Menopause, which you said yesterday is making you crazy, is now making you lose weight?'' my husband asked. He circled around me slowly to see if I was armed. I thought he was evaluating my backside.

"What? I look fat? Are you saying I look fat?" I glared.

He did not respond. He did what all men know is the best way to handle this question. He went to the garage.Quickly.

My first stop at the mall was the jeans rack, where all pants smaller than my usual size refused to go up over my backside.The same happened with dresses, skirts and in the Bathing Suit Department, where I invented four impressive gymnastic moves as I tried to squeeze into things I had no business squeezing into.

There were only two possible explanations. A. Every size tag was wrong. B. My menopause weight-loss theory was crapola.

Depressed, I sunk into a chair in the shoe department, where an overeager salesgirl shoved a sizing gadget on my foot. "Looks like 6-1/2,'' she chirped.

As a major hot flash swept over me, I turned to her and said. "Look Tinkerbell, my feet have not been that small since I gave birth 28 years ago.''

"Well, they are a six and a half now,'' she sniffed.

I looked down and could not believe my eyes.The menopause weight loss plan had worked, all right. But only on my feet. That's when my husband strolled by.

"I lost weight in two places,'' I huffed and wiped my brow. "Right foot and left foot. Geez, turn down that heat, would ya Tinkerbell!''

The poor man looked at my steaming face. He looked at frightened Tinkerbell. Then he did what any husband would do if his menopausal wife was in a rage because her feet had lost weight. He spun around, headed for the door and yelled: 

"Whatever you say Honey. I'll be out in the car!''
___

Copyright 2010 by Kathleen Norton

Writer and radio commentator Kathleen Norton lives in Red Hook, NY, and is an Erma Bombeck Humor Writer of the Month. Her motto is: I might as well laugh as myself. Everyone else is.
 

Click here to see her blog and more of her work.