Too Much Exercise

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Since Nevada forced me to wear a Fitbit and prove I wasn't "too fat" because I was sedentary, I have obsessed over the feedback it gives me. I have also obsessed over reaching new heights and beating goals, mostly to beat myself. Yes, I compare my steps to some friends, and I enjoyed impressing some Brits at Yellowstone when I told them I was very proud of my two 45,000 step days. Of course, my best friend from high school marveled at my weekly totals, but he's doing more important things with his life and time. Exercise, when it goes to an extreme, is no longer about good health, being a good mate, or just routine health maintenance, because it becomes about YOU. Eventually, you exceed the capacity of your body, your genetics, to reach an arbitrary fitness ideal. That ideal becomes the goal, rather than fitness a means, and we become obsessed with exercise, essentially as addicted to it as other people are to drugs. They tell us to do all things in moderation, including moderation, but you can't always see yourself as you really are when you're in the middle of things.

Like most people who exercise, I do this for me. The problem is that too many people do it in order to vaunt themselves rather than as a means to improve themselves. I read today about the "revenge diet", in which people who lose their significant other turn their suffering into motivation to get in shape. However, this is about pride, about what CS Lewis called "the pleasure of appearing to be the best". For many years, I have maintained that a man who has the physique over which women drool does not do so for a single woman; he does so to get attention from as many women as possible. We know that's true with many women, particularly those who use their beauty to purvey pornography or sell salaciousness. I suspect many people who do this are doing it so they can brag and say, "look what you lost" or "look what you'll never get to have". It's not about being better for the sake of being better, it's so they can shove it in the face of someone they claim they loved that they traded down. Well, the women I dated "traded down" in my opinion, but they ended up with guys who were what they truly desired, and I am happy for them. I am unwilling to go to the effort required to be a body builder, and I don't care for the attention it might garner, so for the one who married her husband because he had a waist under 30", more power to you. I enjoy exercising, and I feel bad on days when I don't. I notice changes for the better. However, no matter what I do, I weigh around 203lbs all the time. I'm fighting genetics, and this is my "healthy" exercising weight and size.

Too much causes short term and long-term physical risk. Everyone wants to be attractive, but few of us have the genetics to be olympians or underwear models. Still, society preaches that we ought to be, and so we push beyond the wise limits of our genetic makeup rather than playing to our strengths. Even if we take care of ourselves, other forces conspire against us. As my step count rises, my shoes wear out. I burn through a pair of shoes every four months. However, before I realize I need to replace them, they lose the ability to cushion me, and as a consequence I hurt my foot a few summers ago. It was difficult to walk, to drive, to hike, and racquetball was out of the question. Anything done to excess portends problems. Later on, I possibly got sick running in bad weather. My obsession with fitness eventually started to become counterproductive, and I knew I needed to walk it back. I didn't. It's one thing I control, so I pressed forward and reached longer stretches of intense activity. I started doing this, in the summer of all times, to keep busy, to keep out of trouble, and to keep my mind off the Heartbreak of 2013. Soon, however, I began to do so intentionally to exhaust myself. The Music Man taught me "the idle brain is the devil's playground", so I would exercise to the point of exhaustion. On days when I don't have late class, I frequently fall asleep early, like around 9PM, because my body knows it doesn't need to do anything. Well, last weekend, after a record-breaking week of 256,000 steps, I went up to St. George to get out of town. Well, since you sit while driving and it was late at night, my body decided it was ok to shut down some non-essential functions like my eyes and rest, which is a huge issue driving at night in the Virgin River Gorge. A landmark study showed that prolonged periods of exercise have long-term consequences on health, leading to decreased quality of life later in exchange for peak fitness today. I have long wondered why so many endurance and performance athletes actually look unhealthy. Now I have an answer as to why.

Eventually, too much exercise becomes an end rather than a means. Even I now view the fitbit as an end rather than a tool. At first, I worked out to earn the incentive offered by insurance for meeting the fitness criteria provided. It earned me almost $1200/year in savings from my health insurance premiums, so I looked at it as getting paid $25/week to exercise, which was fantastic. Later, it became a way to compete in 5k, 10k, triathlons, and in preparation for difficult hikes. I managed to get back to a 33" waist and meet or beat all of the bloodwork goals that NV sets as standards for fitness, but it wasn't enough to impress people. So, it became the end itself. I tried to wear myself out every day so that I wouldn't have time for any pain besides physical. It was something I measured, that I controlled, and that I could achieve without other people, so I tried to beat myself. The first time I accidentally got to 39000 steps, I went out for a walk around the block just to get to 40k. Now, I get upset if I don't break 200k steps/week, and it is now the end rather than the means. Now, I obsess about getting a certain number of steps, of being up and about, and the fitness apps aren't any help. They alert you if you aren't active every hour, and they encourage you to compare yourself with friends. I know it's supposed to create motivation, but I'm already motivated. On Sunday, the day of rest, I get more steps than most people get in a regular day when they exercise. I find these new apps to be deleterious to the prescient participation in sports rather than encouraging. Pride gets no pleasure out of having a thing, only out of having more of it than the next man (CS Lewis). I even smugly look on prior days when I get more. I walk rather than run because running steals steps from me, and some days I walk the equivalent of 20 miles. Good thing I'm not also carrying a 130lb rucksack and fighting for my life.

Even a virtue, carried to an extreme, becomes a vice. Exercise is good for your health, water is good for your health, but too much of either can actually hurt you physically, emotionally, etc. I mean, in many cases, I am so much more interested in steps, so that I know I really care about someone when I'm willing to disrupt my routine to make time for them. The steps are THAT important. I am interested, not in health, but in steps. I am so interested in steps that I take more than I should under conditions that are bad for it and put my other health aspects and my life in jeopardy sometimes. Although I don't usually publish my success and I'm not competing with friends through apps to show who is the "most fit" I do compete with myself. I have 586 days with 30k steps, 282 days with 35k steps, 29 days with 40k steps, and my 2 days of 45k steps. As of January 2017, I logged 12,400 miles walking. I feel good about these achievements. I also feel tired. I wish I had something else towards which to strive. I believe in chi^2, goodness of fit, so I'm not interested in a revenge body. I want to live well if I live to be old, so I am not interested in doing the Ironman and risking my own death just to be average in a group of super athletes. I want something else out of life besides living a long one. Exercise doesn't mean as much. My high school friend is a bishop, a husband, and a father, and that's far more important. Besides, someone who really likes me will think the sun shines out my arse even if I'm a little fatter than maybe she or I would like.