Keeping Up Apperances

It has been a long week at the office and I’m looking forward to the weekend. Mostly. This is my duty week with the emergency pager which puts a damper on activities (e.g., no research trips and more distressing: very limited alcohol consumption), but that’s ok. I need a weekend just to putter around the apartment or do some shopping.

I’ll probably make a run to the Asian market out in Virginia Beach in preparation for next week’s annual office fall cookout. I’ll be making chicken or pork satay and/or lap kai (savory chopped chicken salad) and need to get some essential ingredients that are virtually impossible to procure from a regular market. My contribution to the cookout should prove interesting given that many of my staff are steak, potatoes, and apple pie sort of people whose idea of international cuisine consists of French fries or possibly even Canadian bacon. Hopefully my skills at preparing Thai cuisine are polished sufficiently to provide passable renditions of these dishes. But if not, who’s going to notice anyway? It will be a unique offering either way.

Clothes shopping may also be on the agenda this weekend. Over the last few evenings I’ve been hauling fall and winter things out of storage and it’s all too big now. Causal “lounge around the apartment” things are still passable given their limited function, but dress shirts and pants..well, they have to go. The shirts were a little large last year, but now they’re huge. On a windy day they would billow like sails. Can’t have that. The same problem (if it can be called that) exists with pants. Way too big now. I look like an ill-clad hobo when I put on last year’s clothes. Hardly respectable. Ah well. The consequences of successful dieting.

But I wouldn’t necessarily call the process of the last year “dieting.,” per se. It’s more along the lines of simple behaviour modifications rather than any real attempt at dieting. The word “diet” has so many negative connotations and I don’t like using it. I prefer to use the more accurate phrases “changes in behavior,” which may or may not constitute dieting depending on ones definition of the dreaded “d” word. I’ve been much more mindful of what I eat, when I eat (very few late dinners and no snacking), moderate alcohol consumption, and small adjustments such as walking to the grocery store or bank instead of driving. I certainly don’t starve myself and do indulge in the late meal or the unneeded margarita or beer every now and again. But the key is moderation. Taken together, these small changes have made a real difference and various people have certainly noticed and their favorable comments are a source of inspiration. At least partially. Unfortunately, all too frequently someone says something like “Wow. You’ve really lost weight” followed by “Have you been sick?” The latter irks me to no end. The implication is one can’t simply improve themselves on their own; there has to some underlying cause.

I still have about ten or so pound more to go before I reach the goal of once again being officially lean and lanky. Lanky really isn’t all that hard to do as I’m six foot two. Lean..well, I’m still working on that. Once I reach my goal, I’ll start the next step and that is to work on adding some muscle. This will likely mean joining a gym, and going to the gym is something I utterly detest. The last time I joined a gym, I think I went there no more than 20 times over the course of my two year membership. This is pathetic of course, but in my defense, the gym was dark and creepy, hardly an environment that inspires physical activity (unless fleeing the place counts). Rejoining a gym (and actually going there regularly) will be exactly like the whole behavior modification (“diet”) thing. It’s all a matter of proper focus. The hardest part is deciding to make some changes and starting down that path.