For the next six weeks I will be walking and practicing with my new camera in preparation for a trip to Ireland.  Walking is a bit boring really, compared to lithe runners with their snug running shorts and pretty shoes.  My jazzy shoes rival any runner’s, but that is about all the competition I can provide.  Have you seen the articles that say you can simply walk off excess weight around your middle?  Yes, I saw the headlines at the supermarket, too!  So, I will perform my own experiment, and it will not involve eating kale.  My diet is mostly natural foods, however I still inch up a couple of pounds every few weeks.  The reasons are valid and can be confirmed by witnesses, but how I got here is not nearly as interesting as where I am going.  Honestly after sporting a boy body all my life I feel powerfully curvaceous with a B-cup.  It is not the weight that I mind, but the pudgy bulges when I sit down, and standing for hours on the beach is tiring.  Sitting down I look like I am wearing a flotation device around my middle, and some of my pants no longer fit over the floaty part.  For the record I would like to keep the butt.  And the B-cup. I will not cut calories, but will walk at least a mile 5 days per week for the first 3 weeks.  Writing about my progress may cause a bit of a Hawthorne effect, so I must be diligent about eating sugar to protect the integrity of this experiment.

Something tells me that my current two walks a week is not sufficient conditioning for 7 days of trekking around the Emerald Isle.  Arduous hikes are not part of itinerary, however the cumulative effect of a few hours walking per day could hobble me, and what a shame that would be.  A six-week timeline also coincides with the number of summer days remaining here in Michigan.  Winter is always coming.

This well-intentioned idea came to me while on vacation, where so many great plans are born, yet never make it back home.  On the first day I walked down the gravel road and later along the shore of the island where we vacation.  Each walk an easy mile, I walked with spring,  buoyed by my new plan.  Another benefit of walking outdoors in Northern Michigan is that the black flies and mosquitos spur me on and keep my heart rate up, like tiny coaches.  A mile is easy because I worked my way up to that 8 months ago after my last RA flare.  After limping to the bathroom for a couple of months, it seemed like a prize to walk that far at a good clip.  It is time to move on now.