Out to Pasture

Operation 10,000 steps is not going well. As in, I’ve given up. I have lost my high priced jockey. That’s two down. I think this second one might have gone AWOL out of sheer boredom. It turns out that even when counting steps, I’m not active. My average was about 7,000 steps/day. At least I solved yet another mystery of my weight problem, so it wasn’t a total loss. I take about 3,000 too few steps per day for just a basic level of health. Good to know. 

At first I was upset the thing was gone but now I’m relieved. The problem with a person of wide girth wearing a pedometer is two fold: 1. Pants tend to roll down round bellies. The pedometer rolls with them then pops off at inopportune moments. and 2. When sitting, the clip jabs into your side. It is an uncomfortable reminder of both flabbiness and pedometer wearing.  

So what have we learned so far about staying overweight? 1. A paid for but unused gym membership does not result in weight loss. 2. A pedometer (whether paid for or not) that tells you how lazy you are does not result in weight loss. Neither does: 3. Graphing your weight every day. 4. Keeping a food diary à la Weight Watchers. 5. Trying to eat low carb but regularly eating bread and pasta anyway. 6. Having the P90X DVDs on a shelf in the living room. 7. Having a treadmill in the basement. 8. Giving up entirely and eating whatever. 9. Writing down how much weight I want to lose every January 1st.  

I think I might be getting close to a breakthrough here. As evidenced by all these numbered lists, this has become very scientific. Before you know it, I’ll have figured out everything you can do that will not result in weight loss. Perhaps I should write a journal article.

Lest I sound too negative, though, here is the complete list of things I have done that actually did result in weight loss: 1. Chemotherapy 2. Walking to and from college. 3. Spending an hour at the gym every day to avoid cold calling. 4. Eating around 30 carbs/day. 5. Delivering a baby.  6. Eating nothing from the grocery store, only market food. 

So all is not lost; I have some options here. But, no more jockeys.