Health is in the Cells Week 1

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I mentioned earlier that the State of Nevada declared me overweight and out of shape based on my BMI back in March. This last week, I have been wearing the Fitbit they provided for me that tracks my activity, and it corroborates my conclusion that health is in the cells and not in the waistline. I know this won't get me dates or make me more attractive to people who don't have access to this information, but it is nice to have a biometric device corroborate my own feelings on the matter with actual data. As a scientist, I find it conclusive even after the first week.

Day 1: Shooting with my Cousin On the first day of the test, I opted out of my exercise regimen to spend time with my cousin. We went out into the desert to go shooting instead. According to the data, I still burned 2056 calories on the day, walked 1.6 miles total, and logged 30 minutes of moderate exercise. No sleep was logged, and I don't know if I wore it the entire day. I think I only started using it in the afternoon.

Day 2: Hiking with my buddy Although we opted to do the lower peak rather than Charleston peak, this was the coup de grac of the week. I logged 3600 calories, hiked 9.25 miles, logged 128 minutes of strenuous exercise and 142 minutes of moderate exercise, and slept nine hours. No wonder I am always hungry!

Day 3: Regular cycling run Although I rode my bicycle 12 miles, the fitbit credited me for only 6.8 miles of walking for the day. Still, it gave me 3600 calories, including an hour of strenuous exercise, two hours of moderate activity, and 5.75 hours of sleep. So far, I'm burning almost double the calories my RDA suggests.

Day 4: Back to work Since I'm teaching again, some of the time I spend in class is spent walking back and forth. I'm a somewhat insecure teacher who paces a lot and walks back and forth between students and the board and between groups in lab, so even when I'm teaching I am also technically exercising. In the morning, I lifted weights and by the end of the day I earned 59 minutes of vigorous exercise, logged 6.5 hours of sleep, and 2900 calories burned. This turned out to be my lightest day.

Day 5: the Cycling Cycle I cycled in the morning and then played racquetball in lieu of lunch, like I do each week on TU and TH. Since Friday is a holiday I won't be able to play as the gym is closed for the 4th of July. As usual, I did my 12 mile ride and then spent 42 minutes on the court. For some reason, I burned only half as many calories cycling today, which might be an aberrant reading. Here's how the fitbit calculated my efforts: I slept for 6.25 hours, walked 7.6 miles, burned 3400 calories, and by afternoon I accrued 76 minutes of vigorous exercise.

Day 6: Weightier Matter Since it's July, I added 1.5lbs of weight to each hand for my circuit training. I do 300 repetitions each with now 16.5 lbs in each hand. Then there are some crunches and stretching exercises that break up the sets and allow my arms to recover between different muscle groups, but boy are my arms tired! By the caloric numbers, the weight regimen does not reach the aerobic level of effort, which sucks, but racquetball is proving to be the best bang for my buck of all the activities I do. Since it was technically another light day, I walked 6.5 miles, earned 27 minutes of vigorous exercise, burned 3200 calories, slept 6.25 hours,

Day 7: Cycling and Racquetball Again Twelve miles on the bike and 42 minutes on the court marked my regular exercise, and then we did lab at night. This time, I got these results: I slept 6.6 hours, walked 8.7 miles, burned 3580 calories, and earned 86 minutes of vigorous exercise. I have decided to start wearing ankle weights and a backpack when I take my walks on my work breaks to burn extra calories, but we'll see how long I keep to that since it is July and has been near 110F every day this week.

In conclusion, any observer will discover by looking at this data that I weigh almost 200 pounds because I am active. If you do this much cardio, you are bound to have better muscles and ravenously hungry cells. You will notice that I burn far more calories per day on average than people are suggested to eat. In fact, I found it surprising to learn that I burn 1920 calories per day just to stay alive (breathing, heartbeat, etc.) if you protract that amount of calories I burn while asleep over the entire day. Not many people I know actually know how many calories they need. We just assume that we need about 2000 per day because that's the simple figure provided by the government. Although results vary, I accrue 300 calories for my 35 minute weight routine, 400-600 calories for the 12 mile cycling, 500 calories for 40 minutes of racquetball, and a stunning 200 calories for TEACHING CLASS every day. Between the walking and talking, I guess I'm more active than I thought.

Health stems from the activities in which the cells engage and how actively they metabolize. No matter how much that you diet or exercise, you may not be able to look like a supermodel or olympian. We can't all hire a personal trainer for $200/hour or benefit from the White House Chef, and not all of us come from genetic backgrounds that bless us with compensatory mechanisms for poor choices at the table or lunch counter. Realize that your body type is your body type. Part of it is genetic. I have two students this term who admitted that they eat like a garbage disposal but look like swimsuit models. I eat like a swimsuit model and look like a garbage disposal, a new garbage disposal, but a disposal all the same. The real point is to take care of your body so that it will take care of you. Like everything else in life, the Law of the Harvest applies, and you will reap what you sow. Someone told me once that when you are 20 you have the body that your genetics gave you but by 50 you will have the body that you earned. Even my hiking buddy, who is blessed with great genetics, is starting to see the fruits that 15 years of drinking and smoking bring, as I now look better than he does. After our hike, he apologized for whining and wimping out, and I wasn't really all that tired.

Still there will be women who will look past me anyway. Aside from the young girls at the gym or the random neighbors I encounter in the early mornings, nobody knows I work out. I accept that I'm of average attractiveness, that I'm not top shelf, and I know it. Most of the women I know are looking for top shelf if they can get it, no matter what shelf on which they may be. I'm ok with that, because I see plenty of folks out shopping and wonder if they were attractive when they were younger. Most of them are reaping I think what they have sown- drugs, malnutrition, sedentary behaviors, ad infinitum, and they look awful or look like they are in bad health. You cannot see inside the cells without a microscope. You shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Many of those who look fit deserve to be fat, and many of those who are less than fit deserve better. The data certainly corroborate that I have earned everything that I have. I am doing the best I can with what I have, and to the right people, that will be enough. I know it is for God.