Thoughts on exercise this morning
Some random thoughts that occur to me this morning after Nikki and I decided to suddenly start exercising this weekend after a rather long break from anything resembling exercise.
- After apparently laying about like a gelatinous slug for the past millennia, muscles actually atrophy to the point where my body actually has to re-evolve the ability to have muscles. It doesn't like that, forced evolution of muscle in the span of a few hours hurts like a mother. My splendidly-muscled laptop typing fingers excepted, of course. My glide-pad finger has a six-pack.
- I no longer have legs, I have pain-sticks upon which I totter about like a drunken circus clown on stilts, unfortunately afflicted with Tourette's.
- Sneezing has turned into an explosive shout-bark, especially hilarious in the middle of allergy season.
- My recent habit of camping in a Starbucks to work when I am not at a client's site is now some form of purgatory since sitting on a wooden chair on my recently punished glutes is agony.
- The older I get, the more intense this period of "discomfort" is after re-starting exercise. I thought we were pretty sensible about what exercise we did, taking it relatively easy. It now seems likely that while I was asleep on the weekend I was drugged and beaten with sticks by a whole rugby team as I lay in bed. There is no other explanation that makes sense.
The sad thing is the horrible horrible realization that I have to actually exercise again soon, or this will all be for nothing.
Exercise does not equal weight loss, but it does help keep it off
Some pretty neat articles here on the New York Times website about exercise and weight loss. Many people I know find that exercise makes them so hungry they eat more afterwards, ruining the calorie deficit required to actually lose weight. It seems that this holds up in scientific studies, primarily for women. Women seem to get especially hosed because the mechanism that wants to maintain the body's weight works especially well for them, while for men it seems to not be as effective. The guess is that women naturally retain more calories for reproduction. Either way, women are getting the crappy end of this stick, as far as weight loss goes.
The other neat part is there is some evidence that the amount of exercise required to actually do some good might be a lot less than originally thought. In one study they just prevented people from sitting down at all during the day and saw that while hundreds of extra calories were burned, there was no associated appetite increase. Kinda neat stuff.
A really cool read, saw it on Metafilter.
First Run with the new iPhone armband…
It makes quite a difference....
Feeling rather good about that one.
Ok, one more running post
I said I wasn't going to post about running any more, but maybe just one more.
At least two things have occurred to me recently while running: you don't generally want to use the earbuds you wear running in non-running situations, and carrying your iPhone in your sweaty hand while running is awkward, dangerous and often disgusting.
First off, running with earbuds in is a necessity. The problem is that when I run, my ears head everything sweats and so the earbuds are in contact with said sweat. Then, once I am all showered and ready for work, the thought of putting those earbuds into my clean ears gives me the willies. I have a mental image of my smelly ears emitting twin visible vapour trails of BO behind me as I walk around at work. So, I will therefore be buying a set of cheap earbuds for exclusive use while running. Problem solved.
Next is the necessity of carrying the iPhone while running. I never purchased a belt clip, case or anything I can use to fasten the iPhone to my person, so if I want to track my runs I need to carry the iPhone in my hand as I run. This becomes an issue since as you can imagine my hand gets a tad sweaty and my grip on the phone becomes a little precarious. An armband is the ticket, for sure. This decision is a bit harder, since there are a ton of options out there. Haven't decided yet, but I think I like this one.
That's it, no more running posts.
Last Run Update
I think I will stop posting these here, mostly because if I decide to stop now, you won't know if I wimped out and stopped running altogether. Although, you might be thinking that already, and assume I'm just saying this to fake you out.
Either way, it's for the best.
Tonight’s Run
Not the best running schedule just yet, this is only my second run in eight days, but I did run a bit farther tonight.
Now if I could just run again within the week, we might see some improvement....
Archivery
Taggery
Category-ery
Flickr-ey
Twittery
- I just ousted @scootermcgee as the mayor of Subway on @foursquare! http://4sq.com/9rMJHS
- â@pattonoswalt: Bustles and plums! #VictorianEraOrgasmYellsâ. Good lord, just followed Patton and this is like tweet #5. Sweet.
- My new blog post: "Nerd Humour Alert" http://nn.nf/1cvco
- My new blog post: "Working From Home" http://nn.nf/1cuql