Morning Constitutional

“Weight can fluctuate from year to year.”
“Fluctuate? You make it sound like I'm retaining water. I've gained 45 pounds in a week! Pete, what's happening to me?”

I wouldn’t call it “getting fat”, but I weigh more now than I ever have in my life. Sure, it might just be an age thing, but I believe it’s a lifestyle thing too—and by lifestyle, I mean the switch from college to career:

In the past year, I’ve gone from college life: which consists of eating the most inexpensive life-sustaining provisions fit for human consumption coupled with a rigorous daily walking program (trekking to and from campus several times a day), to career life: eating whatever I want (because a full-time salary can afford it) and walking no further than the distance from my appartment to the car, and from the car to my desk.

“I don't know what's happening to you. You're starting to look like the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

I’ve never been a real weight watcher, so I’m not really sure what I weighed during college, but I’ve got a pretty good idea of what it was, and arguably put on ten pounds over the past ten months. Sure, a pound a month isn’t too bad, but think of this—I just started my career, and if I continue this weight gaining pattern until I retire, when I turn 65 years old I’ll be weighing in at a cool 990 pounds.

“I don't know, Scott. You're as healthy as a horse.”
“Yeah! Clydesdale!”
“So what? You put on a little weight.”
“Weight? Does this look like a little weight to you?”

I work out regularly—each week I run about 6 miles, and swim about 1, I have a gym membership (and surprisingly, I use it), and ever since the day I started working here I’ve taken the stairs, never the elevator. I don’t feel out of shape at all, but there’s no question: I’ve got more abdominal girth than I’m used to having.

“Well, I haven't seen you since you was a baby, Harry. You're a bit more along then I would have expected; particularly around the middle.”

A friend of mine organizes local P.R. events for Subway (the sandwich company). Last month she put together a Heart Walk (walk-a-thon kinda thing) and Jared Fogle was in town to promote it. I didn’t get a chance to meet him (not that I’d care to), but I did see him in a TV interview one morning.

Here’s the dork’s bio: in March of 1998 Jared weighed 425 pounds. After a year of eating a subway diet and walking 1.5 miles per day, he lost 235 pounds.

I think this kid’s a geek, and I’m not entirely convinced that there’s nothing fraudulent about him. I don’t believe in the subway diet, but there is one part of his program that I do believe in, walking.

I hate to admit that I was inspired by Subway’s awkward poster boy, so I wont. In fact, for the past two months or so, I’ve been toying with the idea of walking to work, I think seeing him brag about walking (the same way Terrel Owens brags about burning a defensive back for a touchdown) just reminded me that it was something I wanted to start doing.

In college, I selected my living accommodations by determining which place had the cutest girls, or where I could live to be closer to my bros. Now that I live alone, and since most every apartment complex I’ve come across has neither cute girls nor bros, but Americans who don’t comb their hair or bathe their kids, and migrant workers who don’t speak English or possess a green card, I chose my current complex based on work commute convenience alone.

I live 9/16 of a mile from work. It takes me two minutes to drive. After four months of a 50 minute one-way commute from Provo, I was ecstatic about the micro commute. But now, the novelty of it has worn off, and the reality of my body’s withdrawals from not walking has taken over.

So for the past two weeks I’ve been walking to work—and I love it! At work, I’m stuck in a cubical all day, but walking gives me a chance to be outside, and to feel more in tune with the weather and the seasons. Its amazing how much more aesthetically appealing this state is when you’re not trying to pass through it as fast as possible.

“And the walking man walks,
Doesn't know nothing at all.
Any other man stops and talks,
But the walking man walks on by.
Walk on by.”

Walking also gives me time to think. It takes me about 10 minutes to walk one way, so after two round trips (I walk home for lunch), that’s 2 ¼ miles of exercise and 40 minutes with which to ponder.

Walking to work also breaks up the monotony of things. If I usually walk to work, then the days I drive to work (have errands to run during my lunch break) suddenly seem like special occasions.

The thing I don’t like about it is that everyone at work notices when I walk and when I don’t. When ever I drive, they look at me all confused and disapointedly declare, "You didn't walk today" as if they expect an explanation. It hasn't been a problem yet. I just tell them I've got institute right after work, or I need to get to the library before it closes, but what happens the day they confront me about not walking and it's because I have an appointment right after work with the proctologist?!

All in all, I think walking is a great thing. Its the kind of activity that both strengthens the body and relaxes the soul. If found that walking to work doesn't just slow the pace of my commute, but it slows the pace of my life--or at least the way I take things in. It unwinds the tension from my consciousness so I can approach the day calmly and courteously. This walking stuff's fun, I think I'll keep it up, even after the weather turns cold.

“And in the future, we don't need horses. We have motorized carriages called automobiles.”
“If everybody's got one of these auto-whatsits, does anybody walk or run anymore?”
“Of course we run. But for recreation. For fun.”
“Run for fun? What the hell kind of fun is that?”