As is customary for me this time of year, I need to lose a few pounds that I have put on in the “filling out season,” which begins around Thanksgiving, moves along sluggishly through Christmas and New Year’s, and finally winds up when I can no longer buckle my pants without the danger of popping a button and putting the dog’s eye out.

Only those of you with the metabolism of a teenager do not understand this moment of crisis: It’s a cold February morning, and you’ve just tried on your sixth consecutive pair of pants, folding each one in turn and stacking them like hot cakes on your bed. You could perhaps wear a couple of them so long as mobility and breathing comfortably are not strong priorities for you. Otherwise, about all you have left is a pair of green-and-black-checkered fleece pajama bottoms with a drawstring. You may be able to get away with wearing these as “warm-up” pants at the gym or even in the grocery store, but try wearing them to work and colleagues may begin to whisper in dark corners of the office and your boss may shake her head in a mixture of pity and contempt before sending you home or to JC Penny for some khakis that actually fit you, unlike the traitors stacked high on your bed at home.

So you are standing there, and you bravely confront your choice — buy a new wardrobe or lose some weight. Buying a new wardrobe has its appeal of course — what proud red-state American doesn’t love a shopping spree at Belk’s or Goody’s? Sure, you have only $17 in your bank account, but spending money you don’t have on things you wouldn’t need if you would exercise more restraint — or just plain exercise — is so American that we should consider setting it to music and singing it at high school football games. If President Bush doesn’t have to balance the country’s budget, why should you balance yours?

On the other hand, if you give in to the seductive whisper of deficit spending and buy a whole new wardrobe from the husky section (or “plus size,” as it is now euphemistically called), what does that say about you? Are you a weakling? A sloth? Lacking in moral fiber?

And where will it end? Won’t November roll around again, with its artery-clogging, seam-busting buffet of goodies, tray after tray of them whizzing around your head like flying saucers? What then? More pounds, another wardrobe purge, another shopping spree?

No, it has to stop here and now. You resolve to put the stack of pants into a box which you will mark with a Sharpie, “summer pants,” because, by this summer, you are going to be able to comfortably wear these again. Heck, you may even need a belt to keep them from slipping! You will once again be able to recognize yourself in photographs instead of that bloated imposter. You will be able to walk up a flight of stairs without having to take a break midway in order to catch your breath and eat a sandwich and some Cheetos before completing your trip. You will not have a single pair of pants in your closet that features an elastic waistband or a drawstring.

First, however, you need a plan. You’ll start going to the gym again, not tomorrow, but today! Where are your gym clothes? Better yet, you will get yourself a treadmill and run on it every night while you watch the news, or the latest reality show, or the fitness channel, where perfectly toned beautiful people are doing calisthenics on the beach (I am always surprised not to see beautiful people doing calisthenics on the beach when I am on vacation — where did they go?).

True, you cannot afford a treadmill, but you can probably find one on eBay for less than you would pay for a new wardrobe, and you’ll use it every day from now on for the rest of your long and healthy life. It will be worth its weight in gold.

But wait ... now you are having a flashback. An image begins to materialize of a treadmill in your mother’s basement, pushed into a corner, coated in heavy dust and decorated crudely with cobwebs and the shells of dead bugs. What is that? A box of magazines, National Geographics and Readers Digests that have not seen the light of day since the disco era, sits forlornly on the belt.

More images crowd in — abandoned Nordic Tracks, Bowflex’s, weight benches, rowing machines, Ab Blasters, Thigh Masters, and other assorted disasters of good intentions gone extinct. The rooms they occupy are like museums that no one wants to visit. Who wants to be reminded of a time when the promise of daily exercise rang true and clear, before these prehistoric beasts were transformed into exotic coat racks?

So maybe I will pass on the treadmill. But I am having a salad for lunch. You can bet on that. When summer rolls around, I will be good and tired of wearing these fleece pajamas everywhere I go.

(Chris Cox is a teacher and writer. He can be reached chriscox@prodigy.net)