Weighing Jumbo...

Ill news travels fast, I hear. And now I know.
It appears that news about Operation Downsize Jumbo has spread far and wide. The martians are popping up from behind every little shrub and tree, to lend their services in helping Jumbo shed her lubber.
My friend Vicky threatened to conduct a fat test on me in 6 months and pulverise the Diet Controller if as much as an itsy-bitsy cell of fat chanced to stray into the test stream....A threat which I suspect has motivated my former Diet Controller into planning a long vacation in Timbuktu.
Another studied my newest photograph and hectored me for an hour on the fat zones on my face, paying little heed to my protests that the chubby cheeks were a legacy from my dear departed father. I dread to think what he would have to say about my hips and thighs...An inheritance from my doting mother, which I would have cheerfully passed on to my sibling if I had been given any say in the matter.
The third, supposedly sympathetic, rang up to "motivate" me into staying on course...
" Hey, so you have become really fat, huh?"
" Err, not really...I mean I think I have lost some weight..."
" Oh yeah?"
The sarcasm that drips from his voice forms a caustic puddle between us. Beware all ye little creatures who blithely go about your business on earth...A dip in the toxic pool would suffice to transform y'all into little mutant balls of lard!!!
" So how much weight have you lost? 1 gm?"
" Noo...actually, I dunno"
" Liar!!!"
" I seriously do not know"
" What was your weight a month ago?"
"....I dunno..."
" Ok, what is your weight now?.."
"...mmmm...clueless"
" Why aren't you weighing yourself? What kind of a weight loss drive is this where you do not weigh yourself??? Don't tell me you have broken your weighing scale...."
I thoughtfully chew the flat end of my favourite multi-coloured pencil as I wonder how to break the news that I did not possess a weighing scale.... Never did.... And I had no intentions of acquiring one at this stage of life.
" Err, I don't have a weighing scale..."
" You are kidding me, right? "
" Nopes"
" Then how on earth do you know if you have lost or gained weight???"
" Well, I just go by the jeans..."
" The jeans???"..'
" yeah and the blouses.."
The pained silence which greeted my confession would have fazed anyone else other than a pachyderm. But we pachyderms are a breed apart. Nothing fazes us...well, except the possibility of being deprived of our favourite food and drink.

But all the same, I thought my well meaning friend deserved an explanation.
"You see, I know if I have lost weight by the fit of my jeans and my sari blouses..So every now and then, I make sure I try on both just so that I can keep track...if its loose, I know I have lost some weight and if it is tight, I know its time to watch the diet...And when I outgrow a pair, I know its time for drastic measures..."
Again, the silence....I couldn't even hear his brains creaking and cranking!!!
" Oh come on, the only thing that matters is the way we look, right? I mean I cannot walk around sporting a display board with my weight on it, can I? And what could be a better measure of one's figure than a pair of jeans and a sari blouse?.... "
And for once, my irrepressible martian friend was at a loss for words.