A recent issue of the Sun City Daily News had an article about weight loss, and how difficult it is to lose weight, especially as we get older. We are squeezed between the opposing forces of a lifestyle that includes more free time for socializing but less physical calorie-burning activity, as well as an aging metabolism with a slower burn rate.

Now, for those of you who are WINNING the fight in the “battle of the bulge,” I admit that this is not universally true. But it IS true for me.

I’ve been going to a well-known national weight-loss organization––one with celebrity spokespersons who start out fifty pounds overweight and quickly lose the excess “baggage.” However, I’ve noticed that some of them show up a year or so later, reunited with their lost luggage.

I recently resolved that I would add some sort of physical activity to my non-physical daily routine, which includes singing in my barbershop quartet rehearsals and performances, broadcasting as a volunteer for Sun Sounds radio for the blind and print-disabled, writing my novels and short stories, attending writers critique groups, and meeting with the marketing and publishing group sessions. You know, the really sedentary lifestyle I pursue.

With a firm determination, I vowed to wear a pedometer and count my steps daily, with the goal of increasing them until I reached 10,000 steps per day and lose my “saddlebags.” So, the first thing I did was to search through my kitchen junk drawer because I knew I had tossed one or two in there over the years.

By the way, if you have a “junk” drawer in your kitchen, raise your hand . . . Aha! I see I’m not the only one! A woman I know (who shall remain nameless) once chastised me for having a junk drawer. But where else would you put things that have no regular use, but that you believe you might need to find some day when you DO discover a use for them?

What I found there were SIX pedometers of various sizes––all of which had dead batteries. So, I guess I’ll have to postpone my walking until I can get to the store to buy another one with a fresh battery already installed. My rationale is that the cost of a new pedometer would be very little more than the price of a special battery––which I probably wouldn’t know how to install anyway.

So, for the time being I guess I’ll stay on the losing side of the “battle of the bulge.”

P.S. I bought the pedometer and took five days to punch in the settings correctly so I could read how many steps I walked. The problem? The buttons and readout letters were so small I kept missing the ones I wanted, getting kilograms instead of pounds and strides that were a yard long.

It would have been okay for a British Amazon.