13.1 Miles

Across the aisle from me was what the people jokingly referred to as the General Store. If you were sweet and loaded with sugar, a bag of you and your friends could reside there free of charge. Butterfingers, assorted types of Hersey Kisses, and the simply irresistible Reese’s peanut butter cups arrived and slowly vanished.

People felt bad about the disappearing candy, so they donated more candy. Twizzlers, mints, and Hersey fun sized chocolate bars took up residence on the scenic top shelf. When there was no more room at the inn, more bags of candy huddled in the dark confines in the drawer below. After the last of the Twizzlers was adopted by some hungry person, the Twizzlers container turned into the donation jar.

The current state of the General Store.

This spanned over the course of months. All conveniently located in cubicle across from me.

There’s an age old question:

Do you run to eat or do you eat to run?

Granted, one of the benefits of running is that you can eat anything and get away with it. However, if you want to shed some pounds eating junk food every day, you are going nowhere.

Houston, we’ve reached equilibrium.

In the great equation of thermodynamics, weight gained or lost is determined by the net difference of the calories you eat and the calories you burn off though exercising and your bodies’ preestablished metabolic processes which enable you to exist. If you burn off a net loss of 3500 calories, you lose a pound. You eat a net gain of 3500 sweet candy calories, your jeans become snugger.

I was stuck in a ditch with all the candy I could ever want, and a labyrinth of streets that I could run circles in. I could assign a fraction of a mile for each Hersey Kiss, Twizzlers, or another favorite candy bar that I ate. Over the course of time I began to approach equilibrium. Soon, nothing was happening to me. I wanted to escape this rut, and the one thing that I lacked was will power. There had to be a way to crawl out of this ditch somehow, somewhere.

To be continued…