Cheat Day (and a Half)

Dearest Rachel –

I’m not sure if you’d be grateful for it or wondering about the topic’s recent absence, but you might have noticed that I haven’t been telling you much about my weight loss journey for the past week or so. Much of what’s been going on has had to do with my car troubles (which, thankfully, are now behind me for the moment), and the thought of replacing both it and yours, as well as musing about other major purchases that, while well within my reach, are still things I need to ponder about whether they would be truly prudent.

Meanwhile, the current repairs have been but one of several required expenditures I’ve had to deal with recently; while I realize I haven’t told you about it, I’ve just walked Daniel through paying his taxes – as well as the first installments for the upcoming year, which are due at the same time – while also taking care of my own as an example for him to follow, right down to how to go about writing the checks (which he’s still not accustomed to; although in fairness to him, it’s something of a dying skill these days). All of this against the backdrop of realizing that I continue to get that much older than you ever had the chance to (although considering your opinion of getting old, would you have considered it so much of a loss?). So it probably doesn’t come as any surprise that I haven’t told you much about where I’ve been lately in terms of my continued attempts to lose weight.

Although, apart from the situation with the taxes, most of these topics play into that, albeit in something of a peripheral fashion. For starters, the diminished vehicular availability has meant that I’ve been doing a lot more walking, in terms of time spent, than I would on a typical basis. Monday saw me going back and forth to the ‘office,’ including a detour for a can of soup (yes, that what was I was in the mood for to accompany some leftovers from the previous weekend) that doubled my trip back, while Tuesday was a somewhat misapplied walk of faith, where I expected to be driving back from the dealership.

The thing is, all that walking has been on a more or less flat surface, as opposed to the fifteen-degree incline that I tend to favor at the gym (which burns SO many more calories in a much shorter time), so I’ve fallen behind in terms of that part of the process. Combine that with the inducement toward indulgence that accompanies one’s natal season (let’s face it; who among us, given the opportunity, is going to engage in self-denial on their birthday, of all days?), and the last 48 hours, in particular, have quite literally been a cheat day and a half.

Wednesday had me meet up with Lars to do a bunch of circuits around the Rosemont Fashion Mall again, thanks to a bout of rainy weather (we could even hear the occasional thunderclap from within). Again, we covered a fair amount of ground, if the Health app is to be believed (I’m never completely sure of the match between steps taken and miles covered, although I suppose that, given that ten thousand steps tends to amount to between four and five miles for me, it was reasonably close to accurate), but on a flat surface, it was nowhere near able to mitigate the calories accumulated from the meal Lars treated me to afterwards:

And of course, with the following day being my birthday (and Thursday), you can bet that I did a fair amount of eating at the folks’ house (and not much exercise – the trip to the dealership this time around was with Daniel); about a half-dozen tacos each (and there were still ingredients left over after all that!), in fact.

So you can guess that, even after my first visit to the gym this week, I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the results of this combined indolence and indulgence. But while it was still above the two-ten line I’ve been trying to put in my rear view mirror for the better part of the last six or seven months, it’s at least below the two-fifteen line again, after all that. And while I’m not entirely done indulging myself – the family as a whole will be getting together after Sunday services (like we used to back in the day) for pizza (yes, I’m finally getting that deep dish I promised myself as I was preparing to get off the ship last year!) – hopefully, I can squeeze a little asceticism in between celebrations to allow me to keep myself this way.

With that being said, though, honey, you’d best keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.