The Bigger You Are, the MORE Calories You Burn

That's a good piece of news for me! I had decided to give yoga a break this morning,as I awoke with a very stiff and painful upper back, yet again. I had done an Iyengar class yesterday, it was twists and forward bends, with an emphasis on contracting deltoids, to fix the shoulder joint for balances and also squeezing of shoulder blades together for the forward bends, to protect the lower back..... gosh, my deltoids, trapezius and latissimus dorsi muscles had their work cut out for them and this morning they were telling me off, loudly and painfully. See, I still remember my anatomy, nothing wasted from leaving the MSc, I can name the muscles that are troubling me! The deltoids are divided into anterior, posterior and lateral, there you go, you always wanted to know that didn't you? Intramuscular injections are normally given in the anterior deltoid. Maybe I should post some images, what say you? hehehee

One on trapezius and latissimus dorsi would be great as well, just to show exactly where I'm hurting.

 From doing too much of this

Parivrttartrikonasana

And this, this and this....

Half spinal twist

Prasarita-Padottanasana-Wide-Leg-Forward-Bend

Not to mention this..

Paschimottanasana (Forward Bend Pose)

I ask my teachers about this pain and tightness I am experiencing and one thought is that I am holding too much tension in my neck, the other is I am squishing my muscles in my back too tightly when doing the forward bends, so as to bend from the hips, thereby creating tension and strain in the trapezius and latissimus dorsi muscles... what do I do about it?? Don't forget to lengthen the spine, is what I get back again and again, right who has a rack that I can strap myself to, in order to pull my head away from my feet, thereby lengthening my spine?

 I digress, what has the title got anything to do with yoga? I am getting to that bit now.  I had a lunch date with Claire today, she's a friend I made in Trinidad and is now living in Aurora, about 20 minutes from me. As I was not going to yoga, I had to try to burn some calories as I am in constant battle with my weight. My love for food, forbids dieting, so, I have to be sensible, and increase my activity level, basically, get off my big, if rather firm ass and do some exercise. I decided I was going to use the cross trainer at the gym, and then a few lengths in the pool, followed by the hot tub, to soothe my aching upper back muscles. That was the plan.

The thing about dieting is that if you diet and do not exercise, then your basal metabolic rate may decrease as your body is conserving its energy as you're not feeding it. There is also the thought that if your body thinks you are in starvation mode, as you are denying it calories, then when you do eat, it quickly converts all the food into glycogen for storage in case that is the last meal you ever ate. This was quoted in Paul McKenna's weight loss book. I have not done any literature search of my own for the thoughts that I have quoted above, so please do not take it as completely accurate. This is anecdotal, ok?

I love this machine

I get to the gym, and weigh myself, shoes off, a hefty tonne plus 2 lbs. I get off the scales, approach the cross trainer, put my trainers back on, start the kinda running in air type motion and all the pretty lights come on. First I have to enter my weight, which I do, it says enter weight, 1lb to 350lbs. Right. Who weighs 1lb, I ask you? And I weighed 1 tonne and 2 lbs, so I entered that, the max it allowed, 350lbs, haha. It then asks what programme I want- Xtrain, that's good, instructions to use arms, legs, reverse and I like being told what to do, as it gets boring otherwise. Then I had to enter how long I wanted to exercise, options, 10-60 minutes, being the ever hopeful I am and wanting to shed as many calories as possible I went for 60 mins, optimist or what. Muscles all achy but still hoping to get 60 mins use out of my body, lol. Oh, I had to pick a level to train at, so I pick 9, out of levels 1-20. Not quite pushing myself so hard. ( I entered my actual weight, not 350lbs!)

I start, and it's great, warm up at 30-40 something or rather. Then it says concentrate on pushing arms, then pulling arms, then revs up to 60, then legs only at my own pace then run in the opposite direction, all these were in intervals of 1-2 minutes, with a little slowing down of pace every now and then. It was great, it shows me how many watts I'm working at, how many calories I'll burn per hour, how far I've run and so on and so forth. I got to 15 mins, and it was easy peasy, but I was getting bored. The view of snow falling outside through the window was not making it any easier. Plus I could see some people swimming in the pool and that was pulling me as well, and the hot tub was beckoning me as well.... grrrrrr temptations. 

20 minutes came and went, just over 200 calories burned. I said, ok, I'll aim to work off 400 calories and I was using about 100 cals/9 minutes, or so the machine said. A fellow condo resident, a slim man came to use the treadmill beside me, walking then running.  I was really bored by now and was looking at the dashboard of my neighbours treadmill. He was running full pelt now, 12 minutes had passed and he only burned 90 calories, for what looked far harder work than I was doing. Soooo, I was happy I was burning more calories, weighing a tonne, but not happy weighing a tonne!

If I look at things simplistically, and not consider a person's basal metabolic rate, it stands to reason that a bigger person would use more calories to do things than a smaller person, basically, more mass to move, so more calories needed.

The reality though, in order for me to shed the extra padding, I have to burn 3500 extra calories than what my body normally burns going about it's own business to lose 1lb in weight. Does that mean that I have consumed 3500 extra calories to put on that pound, extra calories that my body did not need? Eeeek, so I am like 30 lbs overweight, and over the years have consumed 30x3500 extra calories...not going write it down, the mental total is scary enough.

Oh well, back to my cross training, nearly there I hit 500 calories at 41 minutes, this is getting good, am going to be guilt free at lunch. I surpassed the 400 target, but still had 19 minutes to go, shall I stop? Nah, my arms, as tired as they are are flabby, so let's do a couple more rounds, and then 60 minutes will be up. Run, run, push, pull, legs only, arms only, reverse, on and on it goes..... 58 minutes... 2 minutes cool down, but I am still pedalling at a pace, burn till the end. Beeeeeep beeeeeep, workout completed, calories 790! wow, how nice if it were true, 6.4miles run, not bad.....

I hobble off the machine, feeling good, and get into the pool via the changing room and getting my swimsuit on, I only did 4 lengths, wanted to do more, but was conscious of the time and the pool closes for cleaning at 11am for an hour, and it was 10.45. The pool was far too warm anyhow for longer swimming, they must have cranked the temp up as the temp outside was about -14C! I climbed out, got in the jacuzzi and sighed a huge AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Bliss. Was surreal though, sitting there in a hot tub, watching the snow falling through the huge glass windows.  

After 10 minutes soaking it was time to get out, as Claire was arriving at 11.30.  I weighed myself again as I am crazy, and guess what? I now weigh 1 tonne. It seems I shed 2 lbs on that machine, so, it was wrong, I had burned at least 7000 calories and not just 790! Hahahahahaha. What a great feeling for my soul and motivation though. It will be back to yoga tomorrow, I will ask Karin, super yoga teacher what else I can do about my back!

Sushi

And lunch? We went to Sushi Tei, Japanese/Korean restaurant and shared a sushi plate and katsu dong (some rice with pork cutlet and fried egg).  Salad, pickles and some edamame, and miso of course, washed down with lovely green tea. Had to have a doggy bag too, Claire doesn't eat a lot, and I didn't want to look piggy! Actually, I had had enough, perhaps exercise is an appetite suppressant? Pigs might fly, right ? I thought so.....