I have lost quite a bit of weight in the last nine months, about 25 pounds, and now that spring has finally manifest itself in the Middle Atlantic, I've shed my parka and people have noticed. When my neighbor asked how I did it, I told her I'd been walking 2 miles every day - rain, shine, ice or snow - and that it had been as good for my psyche as my waistline. Walking back to our yard, Crash Kid pops out with, "You should have told her you were on the Jesuit diet." Now I'm perplexed, "The Jesuit diet?" "Yeah, like last Lent!" I finally clue in. He gave up chocolate as a penance for Lent a year ago. He'd asked what I was giving up and I said nothing, but that I was trying to follow St. Ignatius' advice in the Spiritual Exercises about trying to find "the mean which [I] ought in eating and drinking" - simply being mindful of what and why I ate. I actually didn't lose much weight last Lent, in fact, but the habit of mindfullness did stick and in combination with the walking has had its effect.
I think I'm more surprised by Crash Kid's recollection of that conversation than I am by the missing pounds. Like Barnacle Boy, Crash Kid clearly pays attention!
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