Leaves on the trees here in Ohio turn from varying shades of green to a glorious array of reds, oranges, yellows and browns in the Fall.  People drive through many of the middle and eastern states just to view these beautiful shows of color.

“Why are the leaves orange now?”

“Because leaves turn orange in the Fall.”

“But why?”

“Because it is Fall.”

“Leaves are green in spring and summer.  Why orange in Fall?”

“Leaves turn orange, and then they die and fall off.?

“So it’s called Fall because the leaves fall off?  Are they turning orange because they are dying?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?  Dying turns things orange or yes, fall is fall because of falling?”

“Yes.  Both.”

“When people die, do they turn orange – or red and yellow?  What is happening in spring if fall is falling?”

“Rest, Diane.  That’s enough.”

This is recorded in one of my mom’s journals somewhere.  She used to pull it out and read it to me when she needed to redefine “That’s enough.”.  Frequently based on some exhausting (her word) list of questions that were ‘unanswerable, unnecessary, and unappealing’ (yeah, again, her words).  Isn’t that an interesting set of words?  Alliteration, repetition – granted – but more so: I learned that my unanswerable, unnecessary questions were just plain unappealing.

How is it that curiosity can be unappealing?  I’m sure, in retrospect, my questions were just exhausting. Especially when my parent felt as if the questions were actually unanswerable.  While I was home schooling my daughters, I had Google to thank for the many, many, many times that their questions were unanswerable from my scope of knowledge.  And little people begging “Why” seem to annoy most of the folks I know.  (I find that more than a little curious, as well.)

Yet now, my world as an instructor has me seeking ways to create-nurture-find curiosity in the adults that I learn beside.  I am trying to find ways to lead us out of “tell me what I need to know” and into “Wait?  What did you say?  How can that be?  What makes that happen?”

I’m losing weight right now.  Interesting journey.  Apparently, not just for me.  Lots of questions.  Mostly relating to “How”.  I’m heavy, so not asking “Why” makes sense to me – that probably seems obvious.  But there are two things that I am trying to pull out of this experience beyond the physical joy of weighing less.

1.  I want to understand the curiosity that I am finding from others concerning my growing success with weight loss.
2.  I want to share my ‘experiment’ with others.

Yes.  It’s true.  When this started to become successful – I began to experiment!  Foods as fuel.  Clean eating.  No chemicals.  Tasty still?  Habit forming?  How do I make a treat that doesn’t dry my mouth out from the inside?  Where is the brownie of my healthy dreams?  What do I do to make sure that I don’t have 60+ lbs of skin laying around my ankles that originates from my neck?

I have read several sources now that talk about the miles of blood vessels we lose when we lose weight.  Blood vessels.  Now think about that for a moment.  Why should we care?  Why indeed!  Your doc tells you to lose weight.  Indicates that losing weight will be ‘easier’ on your heart.  WHY?  How?  Blood is carried throughout our body by vessels.  These vessels need to be in close contact with our individual cells.  As we add to our cells (General growth, additional fat, skin to cover it all, etc.) we add blood vessels to carry blood out to these cells and tissues.  Now.  Hearts still the same size, right?  So all of the mechanisms that move our blood throughout our body are working just a little bit (Or a lot, depending on what you’ve added) harder than they were.

I read anywhere from 1 mile to 7 miles added for each pound overweight.  As adults, our body is prepared to deal with approximately 60,000 to 100,00 miles of blood vessels (average).  It turns out, that we LOSE that many miles as we lose the weight that we shed.  (Think about what that might mean for the yo-yo dieters…..).  I’m still taking in all of this information – and I’m certainly researching it more because I find it fascinating – but now I have some logic to roll behind the doctor’s advice.  Lose weight, lose miles, heart pumps happier.  I like that.

I love the questions I am creating in others.  Could it be that I might be sparking curiosity?  Maybe marching forth as a walking experiment will have more impact than personal weight loss and less pain in my joints!  I want to inspire curiosity.  To have the adult learners in my little world wake up to their own questions – their own potentials.  Maybe they’ll drive their kids nuts instead of the other way around.  “Why when I say it is time to go do you immediately disappear into the bathroom again…..?”

I’ve decided to travel this journey based on miles.  Using the average of the two extremes listed above — I’m going to chose 3.5 miles lost for every pound of weight. To date — that means I have lost 140 miles.

Curious?  You do the math.

26 Jan This entry was published on January 26, 2016 at 3:29 pm. It’s filed under Learning, Science and tagged asking questions, blood vessels, changing, Curiosity, Joy, Learning, leaves, weight loss, why. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.