Now that we're in week three of the State of Nevada's Fitbit assay, I have more illuminating data.
Cardio is not calorically intensive
Shown below are three representative days to illustrate the impact of cardio on caloric demands. On Wednesday, you will see that first thing in the morning I ran for 42 minutes and on Friday I rode my bicycle for 15 miles and burned far fewer calories on both occasions than playing racquetball after work. Interestingly enough, it burns more total calories to walk 3 miles with a 10lb bag on my back than it does to run (see Sunday evening). It was more intense of a workout. Now cardio tends to burn more fat and make you leaner, but if you're just looking at total calories, cardio is not your best bet necessarily. While cardio may ultimately be why I burn 80kcal/hour while asleep (because it raised my basal metabolic rate), it does not yield as big of a caloric burn, which is why it's important to also gain muscle. I have noticed that many cyclists I see are fatter than I am even though they ride faster than I, and so cycling will probably never make you trim. Part of that might be that cycling has a mechanical advantage that ameliorates the extra intensity when you reach more difficult terrain.
Full body workouts burn the most calories
When you consider what I'm doing when it's most intense in color (green), I'm doing full body workouts. Racquetball involves both legs and arms. Walking with the pack on includes both my legs as well as my trunk. Most cardio involves the legs primarily. During my breaks (yellow lines during the day), I decided to walk to the furthest bathroom in the building with a backpack full of outdated textbooks. The walking, eliminating, and weight lifting combine to raise my metabolic demand not only then but for a minor duration immediately afterward.
Most people probably don't need 2000 calories
According to the monitor, I burn 80kcal/hour even when I'm asleep. This works out to 1920 kcal per day, meaning that I need more than 2000 kcal of food daily in order to stay alive. I suspect that this is more than most people need. In fact, if I recall correctly the 2000kcal figure assumes that you need 1500 to stay alive and are moderately active at work. You can see that doing almost anything at work besides sitting at a desk burns extra calories. Washing dishes, doing laundry, talking, etc., all combine. How else do I burn 300 kcal during a 3 hour lecture? I'm mobile and talking almost the entire time, which involves muscle movement and other activities besides staying alive. That being said, you can quickly increase the demand by simply doing a brisk walk or use that as an excuse if you decide to have an extra candy bar. A few years back, I told a friend I would pass on his birthday pie in order to avoid having to jog in the morning in order to burn it off. I no longer take a day off, and since this monitoring started, I made sure I do eight workouts or more weekly.
Feedback leads to motivation
Since I get daily and weekly feedback, I am motivated to do something. When I notice that I'm not active, I go do something. Sundays are usually a day of rest, so I decided to take a brisk walk in the evening when it's "cooler" in order to burn some extra calories so that, even though Sunday remains my "worst" day, I still burn almost 3000 kcal on Sunday. During the day I frequently choose to take the stairs or walk or carry things or make that shopping stop in order to have an excuse to do just a little bit more and increase my fitness, readiness, endurance, or metabolic activity.
Ultimately I'm the only one this will satisfy
They say that you should work out until someone loves you, implying that it will attract a mate. Although a fellow I know recently reported that after six months he got the attention of a young lady he was trying to impress, my six years of activity have not led to that result for me. In fact, the women I dated welcomed me due to other things rather than my looks. Being fit does not impress women. When they say they like "fit" or "athletic" guys it's about how a man looks and not his abilities. I know that I'm in better shape, and I know that there are things I can do, and if you're going to choose someone by their colorful candy shell don't be surprised with what comes with that. To date in 2014, we have only been passed while hiking once, and that was on a day when we decided to carry a backpack full of rice in preparation for a longer backpacking trip in September. An older gentleman without such burdens passed us on the steepest part, and although I felt bad, this is the first time anyone has "bested" me to date this year. Although it's possible that some nice young lady MIGHT be attracted to me, since nobody has hit on me while working out yet, I rather doubt I'm doing enough for that to ever be the case.
Genetics ultimately play a huge role
Just now as I sat down to type this, I passed a few young ladies in the corridor wolfing down what amounts to garbage food. It drew my mind to people I know who eat like garbage disposals but look like underwear models. My hiking buddy told me that he envies my level of "fitness", because even though I look average, when we reach the peak I'm less out of breath than he is despite the extra 30 pounds I carried up with me. Some people have more efficient metabolic pathways and some have inefficient nutrient acquisition mechanisms so that they can eat poorly and look like the picture of health. Other people can eat perfectly and still not look as good as those who are blessed with good genetics. My genetics ultimately mean that I will probably never have washboard abs or be the best physical specimen. Although my other facets more than compensate for that weakness, I know I'm fighting genetics, but I'm trying to master my body and make the best use I can out of what God gave me. I know that if He gave me a body that easily did whatever I liked I would probably take it for granted, so this is probably better.
In the cells is where metabolism and genetics actually occur. If you're building good things on the inside, eventually they work their way outside. The new EH&S coordinator told me today that she thinks I'm a fine specimen and that if her daughter weren't so young (she's 21) she'd introduce me to her as the kind of guy she hopes her daughter will find. You can train your cells. You can give them good building materials. You can encourage them to do more, to do better, and to make you the kind of person you want to be. Ultimately the only way to control your looks is to cheat, but since our skin is mostly made of fat, it really is fat to which we are attracted. The phospholipid bilayer is made mostly of saturated fatty acids and phosphate groups, which is why fat is an essential nutrient as long as not eaten in excess. The right things at the right times in the right ways for the right reasons make you healthy, wealthy, and wise. You get out of your cells what you put into them, and so I'm trying harder to put good things into them so that I can be healthy as long as possible, because health like wealth equals FREEDOM.
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