Quite a Pickle

It appears my exercise regime may have hit a snag. I have been diligent in my daily routine of walking – every day (or close enough) for the past year, roughly 3 miles per day at a pretty good clip. I have incorporated wogging (my version of jogging, which is part walk, part jog and resembles Jell-O wiggling) to help the more stubborn lumps reconsider their positioning on the ole’ gal. My ever faithful companion, the dog, not my love muffin, eagerly awaits our time together and motivates me to action on the days I would rather sit, drink my hot chocolate and read the goings on of the world in the mcpaper.

And I have lost two inches. “What is the problem?”, you ask. Well, the measurement appears to be in my height and not where it really counts. I think I have worn my legs down with all this walking and as a result appear shorter and not necessarily thinner. By losing those two inches in my already stellar height (good things DO come in small packages!) I now somehow appear rounder than when I first started this exercise in futility.

Or, perhaps it is the influence of my see-food diet that has been accompanying the exercise. By nature of my “work-out”, I have lost any rational thinking (implying that at one time it existed) and have justified a sweet here and a candy there and they won’t deter my progress… because of my dedication and perseverance to “the daily walk”. Well, tell that to my metabolism. If my calculations are correct, I would have to walk at least an additional 7.2 miles a day to work off the piece of cake that wanted me so badly I felt obliged to become one with it. Multiply that by my daily inhalation of chocolate and I should probably never stop walking. Which would wear down my height another 4 or 5 inches making my height and width almost equal, making me appear like a cube (quite the visual). Such a pickle I have gotten myself into.

How do I get out of this vicious cycle? The Catch-22 that has manifested into a struggle of my wills has now come down to one of them has got to go. How to choose? Do I give up on something with which I am only casually acquainted (one small, rather insignificant activity that has temporarily motivated me for a year out of my almost half century) or will my satisfying, sweet amore that has dedicated itself to me and has been by my side through pretty much anything of note in my journal of life – all the good times and loves gone bad, the break-ups, the heartaches, the celebrations, the births and the joys – be the one?

The quandary is overwhelming. Why should I have to decide? The two are not mutually exclusive – they could learn to peacefully co-exist. I like the balance the two bring into my life. The walk inspires refreshes and rejuvenates me for the upcoming day. And my rendezvous with the decadent side of the food triangle soothes and nourishes the soul. They become the positive and negative, the ying and yang of my very existence (rather cerebral of me, I know). And if all I need to do to keep the two together in my daily routine is to find a designer who caters to “cubism”, then that search is a task well worth the effort. Or, another option is that I could just start wearing 4” heels…

Cynthia A. McClelland, curious observer of the obvious with interpretations of the oddities of daily life.  Mother, wife and lover of the furry, resides in the north Lake Tahoe area.

Cynthia A. McClelland © 2003-