Monday, October 08, 2012

Expansion Plans 



I made a new hole in my belt today. I've needed it for awhile. My pants have been loose all summer, falling uncomfortably into, how to put this, the Hip Hop style. But you shouldn't wear "skinny jeans" half way down as they are already tailored "half-way" down. Any further down, and you've exposed the very thing you purchased the trousers to cover.

The reason I didn't make the hole earlier was my unbending faith that shortly I would not require that hole. I would, no doubt find the "lost weight" ("lost"? Misplaced only to be rediscovered would be more accurate) and be back to the only comfortable and stretched notch I knew. It never happened, so I just switched to a belt of bygone days that had the holes I required.

Still, it's odd that on our day of Thanksgiving when calorie consumption will be in the three-thousand range, I chose to make this hole in my belt. By the end of the day, I will have returned to the previously problematic mark. Maybe, I've made this hole in this belt to memorialize a time when I sveltely slipped into my pants which truly were "skinny" jeans. This hole is a mark of my asceticism, a time when I refrained, a time when I actually weighed what I said I weighed, in fact, even less than what was on my driver's license. This hole means so much more than a gap. It means health, success and by tomorrow it will be gone. How do I know this? Experience.

Every year, without much trying or effort (or because of lack of effort) I pack on about 15 pounds. Only to realize that isn't great and I run, bike and swim my way to the Holy Land of a New Hole in My Belt. This contraction and expansion is typical of the species. It's winter, there's less sun, there's more Melatonin, more night, more sleep, more rest, more beer, bread and cheese and thus, more fat. Our bodies don't know we have furnaces and sweaters and a full larder year round. All it knows is lean times ahead so buck up and chow down. What should be normal now seems unhealthy. A 10 percent weight fluctuation sounds like a lot to me. So be it then that I accept the passing of this belt hole from one season to the next but I do not do so gently. I will fight to prevent a two-hole expansion. If it doesn't happen, I have this hole to help me remember.

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