Walking Naked

This morning I followed through on one of those ideas I get during the night. You know how they always say you should keep a pad and pen on your nightstand so you can jot down those nocturnal flashes of brilliance? I was pretty sure I’d remember this one.

I have a treadmill that does everything but make me a sandwich. It has been in my spare room for close to a year and I used it faithfully for one month. I used it until I got a friction rash caused by my thighs rubbing together so vigorously. Well, naturally, I had to let up on the walking while that healed. That was 10 months ago.

Getting laid off at work – shall we just call it “canned?” – has served as a lifestyle jump start for me. I have set realistic short term and long term goals for myself and posted them on the wall of my home office. One of the goals is to lose weight. In that spirit, I decided to pull the treadmill out of its convenient upright storage position – so handy for hanging jeans to dry, incidentally.

So, last night when I surfaced momentarily from a dream and heard the words, “Walk naked, girlfriend,” I knew it was a timely message from God.

After my daughter left for work, I locked all the doors, put on a Paolo Nutini CD and slipped out of my jammies. I put on a pair of walking shoes and stepped onto the treadmill.

I walked for almost 20 minutes. It was almost one mile. (New short term goal: Walk one whole mile.) My big fat Lab, Jigs, watched the goings on from the safety of the hallway. There were a lot of things bouncing and swinging in that room. Smart dog.

Walking naked serves two purposes. First, feeling your body bounce, jiggle and flop while you’re trying to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other is extremely humbling and although no one can see you, you feel embarrassed at all that fat you’ve allowed to accumulate. Theoretically, that should be sufficient incentive to get back on there tomorrow and do something about it.

Second, walking naked and feeling your body part jiggle and bounce, feeling the air on your skin everywhere except for the parts that are hidden in the fat rolls, feels daring and sexy. Seriously. And I’m for anything that makes me feel sexy these days.

The sexy feeling was replaced with giggling when I thought about the sight in store for the EMTs if I should suffer a heart attack in that outfit. The first responder would crash into the house and run down the hall to see a lumpy pile of sweaty pink flesh wearing big white tennis shoes being licked enthusiastically by a big fat dog. There would have to be some sort of medal for that.