Thursday, May 1, 2014

Fat

I'm putting on weight again.  The last couple of days ... no, maybe it's been longer than that, I forget ... I've had to let my belt out a notch.  I don't know why.

A year ago, when I moved out of the house, I lost ten pounds in a month and another five the month after that.  At the time I was very glib about it: I figured that being happy was enough to make you lose weight.  After all, it was post hoc ergo propter hoc, so it must be true.  Right?  Here I was, happier than I had been in years, and I was dropping pounds right and left.  Of course it doubtless helped that I was terribly distracted: I was trying to set up a new living space, I had an active romance with Debbie, I had to figure out things like custody schedules right away because school was going to be over soon, ... basically I had a lot going on and so I didn't pay a lot of attention to eating.  Oh, and I was still getting used to my new daily meditation practice, plus I was walking half an hour every morning after meditating and before breakfast and work.

Well, it's been a long time since I was walking every morning.  Life is more routine now, ... more settled and sedentary.  Am I eating more?  I suppose I must be.  But it's hard to keep track of the change.  I've never kept a food diary, nor really an exercise diary.  Also, I don't have a scale here at the apartment so I only check my weight when I go swimming.  These days I suppose I average maybe once a week, or a little less.  Probably a lot less, actually, just because that's the kind of thing people overestimate.  So I'm not actually sure what I weigh right now.  All I know is that I've recently had to let my belt out.  It can't be a good sign.

Years ago – I think it was back in 2008, but I'm offline as I write this so I can't be sure – I wrote a post called "Is blogging bad for my waistline?"  The thing is, I probably can't even blame this on blogging.  Yes, my weight appears to have jumped up during April, based on what few records I've kept, but how could it be that?  Do I eat more, when I write?  Do I exercise less?  Do I sleep less?  Actually it is probably a small Yes to all three, but somehow it just seems intiuitively implausible that that should be it.  I could probably just as well blame it on the big upcoming audit that has taken so much of my attention at work lately ... so that I actually work through lunch for a change, instead of knocking off early for lunch and then blogging for well over an hour.  (I'm pretty sure none of you is my boss, or you'd have sacked my ass already.)

Who knows?  Maybe it's all of the above.  In any event, I suppose I better keep an eye on it or try to scale back a bit ... tomorrow.  Or maybe tomorrow ... or tomorrow ....



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