While grocery shopping last weekend, I noticed a People magazine on the stand. In a bold departure from its usual coverage, the edition was all about weight loss.
“How They Did It — Half Their Size!” it proclaimed. On each side of the headline was a young woman wearing skin-tight blue jeans and a blue T-shirt, grinning the rictus grin of the newly svelte.
Inside were riveting details about how regular folk (people who aren’t movie stars) had lost weight. They managed it by eating less and exercising. As you can imagine, this was interesting and provocative reading, because I’d been previously confused on how all of this worked.
I almost didn’t buy this People, mostly because another headline read: “I Had to Kill My Husband” (I feared it was a how-to article). What prompted me to make the purchase (along with another magazine about some very bad stuff Bill Cosby had been up to) was the sidebar that accompanied “How They Did It — Half Their Size!”
Titled “Half-Their-Size Pets,” it is about dogs and cats who had significant weight losses. One was a dachshund named Vinnie. In the “before” picture, Vinnie resembled an enormous salami sausage with four toothpicks sticking out, which turned out to be his feet. Weighing in at 38 lbs., the dog looked sad, like someone who had spent the afternoon eating Cheezies and watching reruns of Dr. Phil.
In the “after” photo, the 26-lb. dachshund looked much the same, but somewhat deflated, like a balloon two weeks after the birthday party.
At home, reading about these weight-loss pets, I turned to our pug dog Ollie. He resembled the giant salami-dog picture. He lay on the couch beside me, staring intently in case I uttered the word “supper” or made food-opening noises.
Ollie is fatter than usual, having spent the Christmas holidays eating leftover turkey and fruit cake.
We did take him on walks. But food scavenging was his main exercise. If a glob of cranberry sauce fell from someone’s fork, he sprang through the air like Yogi Berra on Benzedrine. Otherwise, he mostly took naps.
As part of a New Year’s resolution, my wife and I both bought pedometers. The notion is we’ll aim for the 10,000-steps-a-day goal, which some say is the key to physical fitness.
Measuring steps is interesting. For instance, it turns out my wife takes twice as many steps a day as I do. She works in a hospital and strides around a fair bit. I, on the other hand, write for a newspaper. So in the time-honoured tradition of journalists (starting with Venice’s Notizie Scritte in 1556) I mostly sit in a chair all day and stare out the window.
The pedometers revealed that not only does my wife walk more at work, she walks more at home. In fact, her post-work pedometer count was more than triple mine.
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Because you sit around all night binge-watching Making a Murder and criticizing the American justice system. Meanwhile, I’m doing chores and such.”
“Sometimes I take a nap,” I said.
“That’s true,” she said.
Last weekend, I decided to put my pedometer on Ollie. Just to see how active he was, scientifically speaking.
On Sunday morning, I attached the device to Ollie’s harness. He gazed at me glassily, oblivious. Ollie doesn’t mind wearing bee or hot-dog costumes or party-hats shaped like dunce caps, so he’s not going to mind a pedometer.
By Sunday evening, he had clocked 5,728 steps. My wife pointed out this is not so scientific, because dogs have four legs and humans have two. The simple fix was, I divided 5,728 and came up with 2,864.
“This dog needs to step up his game. He’s mostly lying around,” I told my wife.
“Oh?”
“He lies on the couch all the time. Instead of being active.”
“Indeed,” said my wife.
While not particularly renowned for my emotional intelligence, I could tell my wife was … well, mocking me or something.
So I’ve literally stepped up my own game. Less television. I try to get up early several times a week and jog. Also, more walks after dinner. Ollie comes, too.
Why, I might even start helping out more around the house. Not this week, though. Or the next. Gradual change is best.
Next week: Choosing the right earthquake kit for your chubby pet.