Walking through the Woods on a Cold Morn

I really did not want to go for my walk this morning. At 5am, it is dark, it is cold (12 degrees F), and I swear I hear my bones creak as I pull on my walking shoes. Fortunately, I am out the door and down the driveway before I come up with a reason why I cannot go. When you stand still in the cold, it seeps into you slowly while you realize how quiet the world can truly be. I am dressed for walking not for loitering, so I start down the velvety dark road at a brisk pace, my breath hangs in the air in front of me.

At the half mile mark, my exertion starts to warm me. My fingers are still chill as are my cheeks. I even unzip my jacket a little. Six cars pass me as I walk. An unusually high number. They all know me though. None of them turn on their bright lights. I am thankful for that. I am in the groove. My body is on autopilot. I am along for the ride. I move effortlessly. If I did not hear the rhythmic crunch of the gravel under my foot, I might be gliding.

At the one mile mark, I turn and head for home. There is truly no wind this morning. It feels exactly the same coming home as it does going out. I am tempted to jog a little, but I do not. My knees would not like it. Finally, I turn up the driveway, and the soft glow of home fills my senses. Warm air surrounds me and caresses me as I walk through the doorway. The walk is done and I am better for it. Now my guilt free day begins.

I really did not want to go for a walk this morning, but I did and I am glad for it.

Laziness and Gluttony

Walter Linn wrote, "It is surprising what a man can do when he has to and how little most men will do when they don't have to."

That in a nutshell is what weight loss is for me. It is something that I do not want to do. I will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid it. I will equivocate, I will delay, I will employ every passive aggressive ploy I can to keep my ego from addressing the obvious---that I am overweight and I need to diet. I will stand in front of a full length mirror and convince myself that I look like an athlete when in fact I look more like a buddha.

Laziness is the most underrated of the seven deadly sins. Pride, envy and greed get most of the headlines, but laziness kills more people than all of the others when combined with gluttony. It is so easy to plop down on the sofa after work and convince yourself that you've had a hard day and you deserve this bowl of fudge brownie ice cream.

The tasks required of me lead a better life are no more onerous than to watch what I eat, and take a pleasant walk every morning. You would think I would make it a life style change. It is so simple and so logical, why would I only do it after I've gotten myself obese and left myself open to all sorts of life shortening conditions like diabetes, stroke and cancer? The answer is in the second half of the quote.

Dieting Fun 101

On most diets, what you lose most in the first week is your enthusiasm. I am down a couple pounds. It is not however the large amount of weight that I have lost on the first week of a diet in the past. If you detect just a tinge of disappointment, it is because it is there. I'm okay though. The bitter weeping is done and I've accepted my fate. Perhaps this diet is going to be a little different since I am on the mossy side of 55. I don't want to dwell on age since it is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is hang around long enough. I do think its happening to me though. I'm starting to get these subtle hints. For instance I can still put in a good day's work, it just takes me 2 days to do it. Another hint is when I get out of the shower in the morning and look in the mirror, my first thought is, "Dad! What are you doing here." They say fifty is the new thirty. I guess inflation even affects age now.

It helps to have a buddy to urge you on when you are dieting. Fortunately I have my wife; she is also dieting. This is a good thing. When I am down, she boosts my spirits. When I am frustrated, she paints the big picture, and when I am really irritating, she tells me to go away. I help her, too! Given enough time, I am sure I can come up with an example. Mostly she knows that dieting is not easy, and it helps to make fun of it sometime.

Have a very good day.

Portly Poetry

Where are the bad boems about being fat?

There's enough about lost loves, and lost weekends,
about lost chances, and lost puppies,
but none celebrating pounds lost.

There's many about double crosses and double dating,
about double trouble and double dribble,
but none about the downy soft double chins.

There's thunderstorms, and thunder roads,
and thunder rolls, and thunderchiefs
but try to find one about thunder thighs.

There's poems about Pol Pot, and pot shots,
and flower pots and pot pourri,
just try to find one about a pot belly hiding a belt buckle.

They are few except for the occasional line like,
"Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life
is so hard?"
Thank you Paul Simon
I should have known that you
a middle aged urban prophet
would go where no man has gone
while Ginzberg and Ferlinghetti
"howl" at my rising moon.

All you can eat Chinese Restaurant

Being on a diet in America is a little like being a vegetarian at a wild game dinner. You just don't feel like you fit in, and you're probably thinking about it more than anyone else is. I was noticing this last night at the binge-and-purge-all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant in my neighborhood. I was spending my time grazing the shrimp dishes, especially the ones that were not fried while watching everyone else load down their plates with General Tso's Chicken and with spare ribs. The ones doing it were generally in the plus sizes, and watching them waddle up to the food bar reminded me a bit of a cattle stampede. When my father raised cattle down south, I learned very quickly to stay out of the way of the young bulls especially when they had that slightly crazed look in their eyes. I saw that same look last night, and did my best to stay out of the way of anyone with that stare, especially if they were carrying two plates mounded with food. I have never understood the two plates thing. Are they afraid that the restaurant will run out of food? Is the thirty foot walk back to the bar for seconds too exhausting? I also have a hearty soup recipe guaranteed to sate the biggest of appetites: Bear Creek Creamy Potato Soup Mix 11oz. Chopped Clams 6.5 oz Prepare the soup according to the package and add the clams. The recipe makes 8 servings at about 170 calories each. A double serving is 340 and that is enough for most appetites. Eat hearty

5 a.m. Morning Walk

The Reader's Digest recently had a story about a warning note that was left on a soda machine in an office. It read, "Diet soda does not work." Someone had added below it, "Try diet and exercise." That is precisely the reason I was out at 5 am this morning walking down the dirt road in front of my house. I have vowed to walk 2 miles every weekday morning before work as long as it isn't raining.

I have to admit that it was a whole lot easier to do this in September when I started it. There was at least a hint on dawn on the horizon, and you could hear the birds beginning to stir. Here at the very nadir of winter, it's a little harder to roll out of bed and pull on the walking shoes, but there are still advantages. There's been a brilliant full moon the past couple of nights. A full moon is never brighter than it is during the winter when it lights the world with an austere beauty. The silence is wonderful too. I am still in love with the sound of a far off train whistle. Always have been; always will be. I can't hear it in the summer. There are too many things in the way. In the winter though the sound of the whistle flows well through the cold dense air. The other morning I found myself walking during a meteor shower. It was so quiet, I swear I could hear the meteors sizzle as they streaked across the sky.

Spring will come soon enough. For now, it is enjoyable enough to walk down a snowy on a crisp morning. Oh by the way, the exercise is good for me too!

Appetite

Sir John Suckling wrote a very long time ago, "Tis not the meat, but tis appetite makes eating a delight." One problem that I do have on diets is the need to feel full when I am done eating. In other words, I have an appetite, and it must be satisfied. I have talked to other men, and this is a general problem. To put it into terms of Beldar Conehead, the Dan Ackroyd character from Saturday Night Live, I need to consume "mass quantities". So don't throw me in with the crowd that can skip lunch, and have a yougert and an apple for dinner. That just isn't going to happen. I've had to develop other eating strategies.

The answer is food with lots of soluable fiber in it. It supplies the bulk without the calories. One of my favorite dishes is Smoked Sausage with Beans and Rice. The meal is simple and quick. It requires an 8 oz bag of Vigo Santa Fe Beans and Rice, and a 16 oz package of Hillshire Farms Lite Smoked Sausage. The directions are simplicity itself. Prepare the Beans and Rice as it says on the package and cut up the smoked sauasage and throw it in. One third of it comes to 560 calories. One third is a very ample serving and guaranteed to keep you hunger free for the rest of the evening. 560 calories for dinner on a 2000 calories a day diet is just about right.

I like the meal for another reason. There are certain foods that define a culture. These are the foods that the common people eat because they are inexpensive, plentiful, and supply most of the nutrients needed for life. In Scotland, it was oats. In the orient, it was rice. In Mexico, it was beans and rice. For the southerner, it was soup beans and cornbread. Eating them is a tie to your past.