Ok, Ok, so that was my first 49th birthday wish, but (Thanks to Twiggy and Kate Moss!) skimpy swimsuits are still very much in style. I think there should be a special “menoclause” added to the “menolaws” when you’re over forty – – you get to have Three birthday wishes! So can this desperate Peri-menopausal woman find a “Peri-Godmother” to wave a magic wand for her 2nd wish? Because if there’s a San Diegan Prince throwing a (beach) Ball, inviting eligible maidens to attend, then I want to escape my wicked diet/evil exercise regime for just one magical night, wear a two-piece (with glass flip-flops,) and promise to come home by the stroke of midnight or before I have an actual stroke (from holding my breath while sucking in my stomach)…whichever comes first.

It’s so unfair! When you gain friends, knowledge, money, creativity, or energy – – opportunity knocks. But gain some weight (or a jean size?) and bam, Jenny Craig comes a knockin’ with Richard Simmons shrieking by her side! In fact, a recent survey reported women confessed they would rather subtract ten years off their life span than add on ten pounds! Let’s face it, in our appearance-obsessed society, weight gain is the scariest “menocausal” symptom of all!

I have a boyfriend (bless his non-muffin top heart) who (sensing that I had the “menoblahs” over my recent “menoflaws”) serenaded me under my window with that Billy Joel song, “Just the way you are.” While he earned my “menoapplause,” I still continued to resort to every trick in the book to lose my “menopudge.” First I heard drinking half my body weight in water helped shed stubborn lbs, so I became passionate about staying well hydrated. Whenever the Culligan Man or Sparklett’s Guy came near me, friends admonished, “Sheesh, get a room!”

Next I drastically banned carbs. I even cut out anything that remotely sounded like “carbs,” which meant I stopped nibbling on all those “curbs, cards and carts” between meals. Hmmm. After that it was the Cookie Diet. Really!? Perhaps Elmo and Big Bird have an eating plan too? And finally I gave the Paleo Diet a go. Gathering berries, seeds, and nuts like my ancestors went fine until one day I was so starved, I gobbled down an actual caveman. But at least he was gluten free.

Unable to make the pounds vanish, I finally decided to just make the scales disappear. Yep, tomorrow I hold a Garage Scale, err I mean, Sale. All the mechanical devises and electronic gadgets ever invented to torture vulnerable females will formally line my driveway with a sign “Everything Must Go! (before my sanity does!) and another which will read, “Best Scoffer Takes All!” Remember ladies, scales are for fish!

And my “Peri-Godmother” just granted my third wish – – because now there is, I kid you not, a new scale out there (don’t believe me? Just google it!) that WON’T tell you how much you weigh, but only whether you lose or gain each time you step on it. My boyfriend (bless his trim, in-shape brain) told me this is akin to having a doctor who WON’T tell you which disease you suffer from but only whether you’ll live or die!

Speaking of doctors, if you want to find one who WILL give you some straight-up answers over the confusion that women our age experience, including explanations for this seemingly unexplainable weight gain (and a myriad of other symptoms) then you need to ask your girlfriends for a referral to a really compassionate alternate health care practitioner because out there somewhere is your own “Peri-Godmother” who will not only grant you three wishes, but will turn an ordinary pumpkin into zero calorie pumpkin pie!