Forget Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig....

Marry a rancher, instead.

Here's a little sample of the Farmer's Wife Weight Loss Program.
*Disclaimer: Effects not typical, but the experience IS. Do not participate in this program if you regularly get manicures, need to reapply lipstick periodically to remain secure or tend to hyperventilate when your hair isn't just so.

Stagger from the house to start the day at 5:00 a.m. to take a walk, because you recently read in your mother-in-law's hand-me-down Ladies Home Journal that 30 minutes of regular aerobic exercise will have you looking 10 years younger in three weeks. (Calories burned: 0; you just started, girl! Get used to that number...)

Prior to taking the walk, spend 15-40 minutes clearing livestock from the yard, shutting off the overflowing water in the tank on the back of the farm truck, feeding dogs and cats so they won't follow you. (Calories burned: 100, depending on how amiable the livestock was. Bonus calories if you had to chase them around the tree row.)

Walk 15 minutes and remember the bills you were going to pay last night but put off until this morning. (Calories burned: 72)

Jog back, filled with guilt. (Calories burned: 200, weight from guilt burns more.)

Children greet you at the door, holding their bulging, starved bellies, yowling about needing breakfast, so you push through them and make coffee AND breakfast. (Calories burned: 90, Calories consumed: None yet, sister.  You just MADE the breakfast, you haven't eaten it.)

As family eats breakfast, you check your email and drink coffee, while paying the most urgent of bills....Y Cross Feeds, Mastercard and MidRivers Communications. Occasionally jumping up to fetch condiments and beverages for the diners. (Calories burned: 30, Calories consumed: 0, unless you take Half and Half in your coffee. Add 10 for that.)

Phone rings as you head to get your toast. It's your father-in-law, arranging the morning fun...moving bulls and roguing grain....and you're 20 minutes late, seeings as how he didn't decide until 10 minutes ago that this was the plan. No time for toast! Throw the kids in mismatched, not-too-dirty clothes and drive like the wind to the meeting place, stopping at the mailbox with the three bills. (Calories burned: 50, Calories consumed: 0)

No stamps. Forgot to feed the bums. Return to the house in a cloud of dust and take care of that business, THEN leave, once again, heart racing because you're REALLY late. (Calories burned: 148, because you ran in the house and to the calf pen.)

Mount 4 wheeler at the main house and head out with the guys to pull the bulls out of the heifers. Please note that the two types of bovines you are going to be dealing with this morning are the two most challenging...yearling heifers and bulls. This little detail will come into play very soon. (Calories burned: maybe 10)

Find four of the five bulls immediately, in the corner near the gate.  The heifers bolt, along with two of the bulls.  You try stopping them but apparently are doing it wrong.  Husband commences yelling at you, you yell back, heifers turn, bulls turn, husband turns and leaves you with 20 idiot heifers and 4 idiot bulls, taking the father-in-law with him to retrieve bull number five. (Calories burned: 2960, mostly in anger and thoughts of retaliatory comments that you WISH you'd thought of when someone was there to hear them.)

Get bulls and heifers in the corral and commence to sorting heifers off the bulls. Remember, they are all idiots. And now you believe your husband is, too. He's thinking the same thing, so it evens out.  Finally, with your father-in-law's help, the heifers get sorted off without incident. (Calories burned: a strong 560, because tangling with the bulls raises your heart rate.)

Go to the house to get a drink of water and make sure the kids haven't cornered their grandmother. Pass on the cookies because your stomach is still lurching from being yelled at. (Calories burned: trace, Calories consumed: 0)

Rogue grain with husband and father-in-law for 30 minutes in 89 degrees. Find old bag of trail mix in the 4 wheeler saddlebag and pick out 12 M&Ms that miraculously didn't melt or become powder. (Calories burned: 1205, Calories consumed: 20)

Load kids, husband and father-in-law in trailblazer to haul everyone to balers, tractors and yard.  Unload 10 lbs of assorted junk from the car. Get kids a snack. Look at the dry, cold toast and pass.  Besides, it's almost lunch and you need to get the dishes done so you can get lunch on the table. (Calories burned: maybe 80, Calories consumed: 0)

As you're clearing the table, you notice an article in the Ladies Home Journal that intimates stress causes the body to create fat stores.  And an article on how to disguise unsightly bulges with vertical striped skirts that cost $500.  You can't get that at Murdoch's Ranch and Home and besides it doesn't look like it would hold up to a typical ranch morning, so you toss the magazine and go looking for that hidden box of Raisinets in the vegetable cupboard.

*You may lose up to 10 pounds in the summer on this regimine, but you'll gain fat stores from the stress. Skip the walk, next time.