I weigh X + 7 today. Nice try. I'm not telling you what X is. X is the weight I like to be. I like the way my jeans fit, the way my cheekbones look. X + 10, however, is the weight my body thinks it is supposed to be. In other words, if I eat what I feel like eating, if I exercise the way I like (rambling walks with and without other people), I end up at X + 10. Without fail.

(We'll ignore the effect of hormones for the time being.)

So I was reading this article in Analog about the race (haha) to find a pill to cure obesity. Great article, by the way. Go read it. The author, Richard Lovett, talks about the numbers of obesity. Most adults don't gain fifty pounds a year. Most adults gain about two pounds a year, and it's this creeping gain that causes a lot of us to be complacent. What's two pounds?

It's forty pounds by middle age.

It's 7000 calories. Some of us gain them in small binges, but most of us gain them… just a little at a time. 20 calories a day. That's a carrot. That's a couple of flights of stairs. We're just a little off balance in our intake/output equations.

So right now I'm measuring 20 calories a day against my X + 10 problem, and weighing both of those against my long-term health goals going into my (gasp) forties.