Account-ability

Today as my mind wandered in class, I remembered something my old internal medicine preceptor said to one of his patients. It was astute, and it struck me as being a great way to reframe a popular topic: weight loss.

He said: If you were a CEO of a company, you would never allow the company to function without an accountant/CFO--someone who keeps precise records of what money is earned, and what money is spent. His job is to make sure that what comes in and what goes out are balanced in such a way that is most favorable to the company, i.e., profitable. And we are the CEOs of our own bodies. We have to keep precise track of what we put in, in order to make sure that what goes in is in a good balance with our needs. And if we are obese, it's our responsibility to cut back on the intake so that we end up with net weight loss. (This analogy doesn't quite hold up, I know--the whole profit thing is actually the opposite of weight loss. But I thought it was clever.)

Then again, I'm like the worst about accounting. I don't really spend much money, but when I do, I definitely don't balance my check book. Every now and then I check my account balance to make sure I'm still afloat. Calorie counting? Recording my food intake? I've never done it, even though I've encouraged patients to do so...

One aspect of marriage that will be new and different will be the shared-finances aspect. I suppose both of us will have to start being better accountants and record-keepers. I suppose this is just a part of growing up and having money, really.

Who knows, maybe it'll force us to be better in regards to dietary accountability, too.