It’s All the Same

I don’t know what I expected to find when I looked at the data from my Body Bugg.

Well actually I do know what I expected to find. I expected to find it should I burned very little calories and my metabolism is as lousy as I always thought it was.

Wrong.

The daily numbers from this thing were eye opening.

If I swam for an hour, the calorie burn for the day could exceed 3500.

Wow.

That’s a pound of fat burned in one day.

On days without swimming it seemed to hover in the 2400-2800 range.

Way more than I ever imagined.

As the weeks went on and I gathered more and more daily data, the numbers continued to impress. Overtime however, the numbers began to confuse more than anything else.

For the past month or so, I have been fairly sedentary.

Health issues again have spurred a long period of self imposed rest. A quite depressing scenario overall. Unless I am starving myself, I will gain weight if I do not exercise regularly.  So resting has been very stressful for me. I first took time off from my beloved swimming but tried to continue to dig up enough energy to continue to do Pilates.

Eventually that even fell by the wayside. If I wasn’t just simply exhausted I was in pain with my creaky bones crying out for yet another dose of ibuprofen.

Sick and tired of being sick and tired, I tried something I hadn’t tried before: I did nothing.

I went to work (when I could) and that’s about it.

On days when I didn’t go to work, I slept.

I also self medicated a little with food.

Ok.

I self medicated a lot with food.

No exercise. No self discipline. A lot of feeling sorry for myself. A fairly substantial weight gain was inevitable. But that is fodder for a different blog.

For anyone out there who has dealt with chronic pain or other health issues; I know you know this feeling. The feeling of “I don’t care.”

You just don’t care about anything other than feeling better in that moment.

The world can spin and you don’t care. You just need to not feel lousy if even for a little while.

In my “don’t care” stage I continued to wear my Body Bugg but just didn’t care to download the data or look at it in anyway.

Coming out of that slump and caring once again, I was able to get some Pilates in this past weekend. I also downloaded all the Body Bugg data and charged the little sucker.

And here’s where the confusion comes in.

Looking at the numbers: they are all the same.

Give or take a few hundred calories, the numbers were all the same.

Whether I was up and about, or flat on my back: all the same.

Those two days I spent sleeping had pretty much the same caloric burn as the days I worked all day, went food shopping, and even took a trip to the mall. The same.

What is this telling me?

Either the only activity my body responds to is intense, prolonged aerobic activity…or….the Body Bugg is a piece of expensive crap.

I have an inkling the answer is a bit of both.

My Pool is Perverse

It is essential for life.

We should drink more of it than we do.

Sometimes it is hot. Sometimes cold. Sometimes hard. Sometimes soft. Almost always wet.

I always thought of water as being pretty runny too. You can’t really grasp onto it unless it’s frozen. It is usually slick.

As my Dad always told me, “water is the universal solvent”.

It is also what makes our planet so beautiful. Sure, barren planets have their austere beautiful but there is nothing to compare to beautiful blue aura of good old planet earth.

Oahu has the best tasting tap water on the planet. Rain filtered through lava rock will do that. It always amuses me when you ask for water at a restaurant here and they ask you if you want bottled or tap. Tap. Duh.

I remember once in High School we did an experiment where we used electricity form a battery to break water into its two parts: oxygen and hydrogen. Pretty cool.

What I never new about water is how thick it can be.

It is one of the many things I’ve learned after taking up swimming as exercise.

It is a workout after all, so it is never easy but there are sure days when it is more pleasant than others.

There are some days that pool might as well be filled with honey. The water sticks to you. It clings. You are trying to move through it and it just holds onto you. You power through, giving it the gas. You lift your face and inhale deeply; strings of water coming with the air. It leaves you gasping. You wonder if you should have greased up like a channel swimmer. You just can’t shed the water. It coats you.

Lily Tomlin once said something to the effect of life being perverse. It can be great, but it won’t. My pool is perverse.

It takes a lot to get down and into that pool. Usually it means getting up with the sun. During the week it means no rest after work. It means trying to get a swim in with people who feel that the only place to stand in an otherwise empty pool is in front of the guy that is swimming laps. It means ignoring the ear plugs that really never fit and kind of hurt along with the goggles that keep slipping. Oh and do I mention the searing cramps that have begun to hit me in various muscle groups at various times in my workout? A charley horse in my calf? Really?? With only eight laps to go?? COME ON!

Those things all seem plausible. But that thick water? It is like a stupid joke. The pool conspiring to throw one more obstacle in my way to get me to stop doing this.

Hello?!

Do you know how hard it was to lose weight?

Do you know how hard it is to keep off?

Throw me a bone would you?

I’m trying over here. At least meet me half way.

Actually the more I think about it, most of this weight loss/maintenance journey has been pretty perverse. Always another smackdown waiting around the corner. And I can’t help but wonder why?

Ms. Tomlin also said, “The road to success is always under construction.”

I think I need a hard hat.