Delight in fatness

It's that time of year for gaining weight. I gained a few pounds over Thanksgiving, since there were plenty of goodies and I didn't exercise and spent entire days riding in a car

There's sort of a double whammy when it comes to getting fat at this time of year. For one thing, there are plenty of goodies: pies, pumpkin spice, and candy corn at Thanksgiving; candy canes, gingerbread, and eggnog at Christmas; everything at New Year's. For another thing, it is difficult to exercise at this time of year: it may be icy and snowy; and if it's not icy and snowy, it's smoggy; and if it's dry and clear, then there are lots of seasonal obligations (this week I went to the Festival of Trees and a Cherie Call Christmas concert); and it gets dark early.

Actually, this week it has been dry and warm for December--warm enough that I wore a short-sleeved shirt to church and was able to wash the crabapples off my car. (One of the problems of parking under a tree.) A few weeks ago, I thought I would have my last trail run of the year, but I was actually able to do so again yesterday. Unfortunately, I felt the effects of Thanksgiving, although there may have been other factors at work. After less than fifteen minutes, I was quite exhausted and didn't think I would be able to finish my typical hour of running, so I had to stop and walk. But since I was walking, I figured I might as well use the opportunity to explore some new trails, ones that looked very steep. And they were very steep! Steep is not fun going up nor is it fun coming down. I'm not sure whether I'll go on the steep trails again, although they would probably be more beautiful and rewarding in October than in December. On one trail, I found a plastic water bottle just lying in the middle of the trail, and I couldn't just let it stay there, so I picked it up and took it home to recycle it. Yet another reason I don't believe in bottled water.

I had an unintended exercise this week. Work held a Christmas lunch/devotional on the 26th floor of the Church Office Building. The nature of my job is that I work by myself, so I really don't know many people, so it wasn't like I could go there with someone else. (Well, I could, but I'm very introverted.) In general I don't use elevators when I don't need to, but I didn't think I could do 26 floors of stairs, and I didn't want to get lost. So I got on one elevator, not knowing where I was supposed to go, and I realized the elevator only went to the 14th floor. Another rider told me I should take it to the 14th floor and then go find the elevators that go up. So when I got out on the 14th, I didn't know where the elevators were, but I found one. I think it might actually have been a freight elevator, and it was extremely slow. I got tired of waiting, so I just decided to take the stairs up the remaining twelve floors. It probably would have been faster than that elevator (but slower than the elevator I should have taken). When I came out of the stair door, a man was sitting there, and he asked, "Does that mean you climbed all the way up here?" I was a little ashamed to tell him, "No, I only climbed from the fourteenth floor." But he still said he was impressed. For dessert, there were brownies with Christmas sprinkles that I could eat--but what about the cookies with cranberries? After a quick look at Wikipedia on my phone, which said that cranberries generally sell at Christmastime, I decided that cranberry cookies counted as a seasonal dessert, and therefore I could eat them. (Although I probably shouldn't have, as I didn't realize how many brownies I was eating.)

(I think the cranberry thing is reasonable, as I see them for sale around Christmastime, and one of my earliest Christmas memories is stringing cranberries into a garland. The next Christmas I was disappointed that I couldn't find it in our decorations.)

I'm not sure I ever totally lost the weight I gained last Christmas. But now that I'm not in school anymore, I hope to be able to be better at that.