Swam

Speaking of calories, somehow it doesn't seem fair that a 45-minute swim burns off only 366 calories, and sitting at my computer reading about these crazy election shenanigans would have burned 65 calories. The net result is that I'm only 301 calories ahead of the game.

I'll break exactly even if I eat 87 plain M&Ms tonight.

This stuff will make a person insane. Maybe it already has.

But I did one set of 500 yards in 10:20, which is very speedy for me.

Well it was with flippers, but still....

Calories burned

I'm working on some estimates of calories burned during my typical workouts, to balance my calories in and out a little more accurately.

For a body weight of 172 pounds (let's just use that for a number for now, without further comment) the tables tell me:

• Run 12 min/mile: 626 cal/hr or 10.4 cal/min (5.5 hours per pound body weight lost)
• Run 11 min/mile: 704 cal/hr or 11.7 cal/min (4.9 hours per pound body weight lost)
• Run 10 min/mile: 783 cal/hr or 13.0 cal/min (4.4 hours per pound body weight lost)
  
• Swim, hard effort: 783 cal/hr or 13.0 cal/min (4.4 hours per pound body weight lost)
• Swim, moderate effort: 626 cal/hr or 10.4 cal/min (5.5 hours per pound body weight lost)
  
• Bike 15 mph: 783 cal/hr or 13.0 cal/min (4.4 hours per pound body weight lost)
• Bike 16+ mph: 939 cal/hr or 15.6 cal/min (3.7 hours per pound body weight lost)

Personally, I think those estimates for cycling are on the HIGH side - riding my bike doesn't seem like that much exertion, especially when you compare the heart rates of running vs. cycling. I suspect the tables were made up long ago, long before the advent of efficient, aerodynamic, light-weight tri-bikes.

And jeez, it's a whole lot easier to skip one Death By Chocolate dessert than swim or bike for 2 or 3 hours.

And the real kicker? The more weight you lose, the fewer calories you burn going at the same speed. But it's easier to go faster!!!

Update: After some consultation with friends, I think these estimates are significantly high for women. Figures, doesn't it!?

A calorie burned is a calorie earned

Or something like that.

Today I figured out that our daily walk to school and back only burns somewhere between 33 (Garmin estimate) and 44 (Fitday estimate) calories.

At that rate I'll have to walk to school and back between 80 and 106 times in order to burn a pound's worth of calories. That's ten weeks of walks to school and back.

Guess I'll have to crank up the old exercise routine a bit more than that this week, eh?

3500 Calories

Burn it off this week in exercise: enough Calories to lose a pound. That's our Biggest Loser challenge this week.

My Garmin gives me generous caloric expenditure estimates (since it incorporates body weight, I believe), so that's what I'll use. Let's check some recent estimates:

Last Sunday, run 10.24 miles, burn 1287 Calories. That's 125.6 Calories/mile, or it would take me 27.8 miles running to burn off a pound. I think that's a reasonable estimate. Right now I do that approximately every two weeks.

Today, bike 33.03 miles, burn 2254 Calories. That's 68.2 Calories per mile, or it would take me 51.3 miles cycling to burn off a pound.

3 hours 25 minutes easy-pace cycling (15 mph) versus 5 hours 33 minutes easy-pace running (12 min/mile)? Heck, I'll take the cycling any old day. Bring it on. (Except I don't really think that estimate is accurate for cycling, but who am I to argue with the Garmin experts!???)

Hmm, we get more points if we burn 7000 calories. 102.6 miles in a week? I could do that, except it's been a while since I've actually done it, but it's much easier to double (or even triple, with my low cycling mileage lately) your cycling distance in a week than double your running distance.

We'll see. First I have to get serious about getting rid of my nasty hacking cough.

Body composition work

I'm starting 2008 1.0 pounds heavier and 0.9 body fat percentage points fatter than I started 2007. (On January 1, 2007 I was 19.0 pounds less than my highest weight of January 2006).

Actually, the January 2007 and January 2008 readings are well within my normal day-to-day variation - I basically maintained the same body weight throughout 2007. But I'd prefer to be moving in the negative direction instead of the positive direction, of course.

In the first 4.5 months of 2008 I'd like I plan to drop that body fat percentage by about 8.0 points, in order to carry much less weight around the hills on the Columbia Triathlon course in mid-May. That should get my BMI down to the "normal" range of 25.4 or less.

How will I accomplish that? I've got about 19 weeks to do it. A 500 calorie deficit per day should just about meet my goal - and that's not such an extreme calorie restriction that I will start feeling hungry and deprived (and consequently, have rebound eating from excessive hunger). It's eating at maintenance on days I run 10 kilometers. More exercise equals more food for me! NO it's not a diet - it's sensible HEALTH monitoring and very gradual change.

The hard parts are a) doing it consistently day after day, and b) tracking every calorie in and out.

But the results will be OH SO WORTH IT!! FREE SPEED!!

Let the Games begin!