Extra Gravity Drag Training

Science has known for quite some time that mammals gain weight in the fall. As part of their natural energy cycles, hormonal changes are sparked by the decreasing available sunlight and falling temperatures to encourage the uptake of higher energy foods. Comparatively speaking, fat is physically superior as an energy storage unit. We've all (hopefully) seen the side by side glance of fat versus muscle/ protein. Proteins and carbs require a large volume of water to store them, making them dense and, therefore, heavy. Your body, recognizing the hardships of a long and grueling winter, opts to convert its excess units of heat into floatable fat molecules.

Just in case:

In most competitive swimming circles, the season is a fall and winter sport. That means coaches all around the world are getting their athletes at their most buoyant time. That extra buoyancy makes it more efficient for a swimmer to stay on top of the water and, consequently, easier to flow through the water. Contrary to popular belief, coaches hate this. Granted, they won't tell you directly. You have to pay attention to the indirect methods of communicating their disdain. They called it "drag".

Here are just a few ways that my swim coaches over the years have forced additional drag onto me and my swimming mates:

• T-shirts

  

  Wrong type of drag suit, coach

• Sweatshirts
• Second, and sometimes a third, swim suit
• Speedos with large mesh pockets (conveniently called 'drag suits')
• Shoes in the pool
• Boots in the pool
• Swimming with someone holding your legs
• Tying a bucket to your waist
• Tying a bungee cord to your waist and the other to the end of the lane
• Anyone got another favorite they'd like to add?

The concept was that if they could make your swimming hell harder during practice, then when you stripped down to your loin cloth made of spandex, you'd be able to swim even faster. Your arms would be so used to the extra drag that you'd just fly through the water. And you know what, for the most part they were right!

Cyclists are much better at playing the drag game than runners. They have race wheels for competitions and training wheels for the rest of the year. Training jerseys are the cycling drag suit equivalent. They have one helmet for daily use and fancy, aero-helmets for the show. Some go so far as to shave their arms and legs to save watts (a concept they stole from the swimmers, I might add). I could go on.

Most runners suck at the drag game. Perhaps Olympic level sprinters engage in considering aerodynamic clothing options. Some runners will train in their "normal" shoes and race in their "flats", citing weight differences as their reason. Note: the weight difference is about 4 total ounces. I've yet to read the impact of 100 grams of rubber might have on the overall speed. The problem with runners is that the move at relatively slow speeds to make any gains potentially gained by aero-tech virtually moot. Even worse if you have the run speed of a comatose box turtle; I.E. me.

Well, I haven't been running much lately. I have this annoying achilles tendon issue that's got some extraordinary hang time. I learned, from a hamstring issue last year, that coming back from an injury too quickly yields in yet more injury. So I'm taking it cautiously and waiting until I'm sure that training won't cause this particular issue to worsen.

My most recent selfie

Luckily, I have been eating more. One would think that it would be smarter to lose weight during periods of sloth. Well, and this comes as no surprise, I'm not that smart. Or, am I?

See- running is a weight to power ratio driven sport. Here's where the Extra Gravity Drag Theory takes form. As bipedals, for each stride of the run, the human body is launched from the ground and quickly falls back. In order to perform this task, the runner must overcome the force of gravity. Gravity, being one of the four fundamental forces of the universe (the others being the strong force, the weak force, and the call of a bag of chips), is an ever present bastard that continuously pulls a mass towards its center. Gravity doesn't care how much you weigh, it pulls you down just the same. But, your legs care a lot. The more body you carry, regardless of muscle or fat, the more your legs have to work to overcome the pull. That means it's easier for a lighter runner to cross the earth on 2 legs than it is for a heavier one.

Since there isn't much in the form of external drag for runners, I'm resorting to adding internal extra resistance in the form of blubber. In the near future, hopefully, I'll get back to logging miles. And when I do, I'll have to cart around all this extra luggage. Conveniently, I'll have all of the extra stored energy I could ever want. There'll be no excuses for being lazy, right? Come spring, which hits in early July in these parts, the days will get longer and warmer. If things go as planned (which they never do), I'll lose some pounds and running will magically become easy. That's the theory. Anyone want to join me in testing this idea?

Crazy Find at the Store

I'm not sure about your area (I don't get around much) but not too far from my house is a store. It's got all sorts of crazy things. It's seriously wacky what this place sells. I'm not interested in listing them all as that would make for an incredibly long, boring post (Aside: Not that I'm opposed to long, boring posts as evidenced by most of this blog. It's just that I try to write original work. Copying someone else's list lacks in creativity. Not that I have any of that either. End Aside.) The store has, just to name a few index items: lipstick, shampoo, ice cream, chicken ova, chocolate, floor cleaning products, dead animals in various forms of mutilation, different kinds of poisons, feminine hygiene products, and an entire section dedicated to sugar meant to be eaten in the morning.

Over on the right side of the building (that would be the south side, since the front faces west), they take a bunch of food and just dump it on shelves. I have been witness to this phenomenon for several years now and am still trying to figure it out. They wheel the food from the back. It comes in boxes. Most of this food is not in any sort of packaging. Some employee, usually a teenager, puts the food directly on a different wooden box. Why they even bothered doing that work when they could have just set the original box on the shelf is beyond me.

It's sort of like walking into a thrift shop looking for bargain slacks. You never actually know what you are going to get in this section of the store and you really have to hunt for your items. (Unsurprisingly, the thrift shops around here have horrible supplies of triathlon-related apparel.) Up until recently, I haven't actually ventured into the section due to the seedy characters fluttering about. These people touch each and every item many times. They smell it or squeeze it. They can turn it over and look at it's back side. There is no expectation for them to wash their hands before or after handling these items (and you can probably assume that the teenager that placed the items didn't wash his either).

The food varies in size, shape and colors. Some of the items are smaller than the width of my pinky finger. Others are larger than my head (just for the record, I have a pretty small head). Some are round. Others are flat. Some are representatives of the entire plant. Others are only specific parts. I have been on the lookout for a perfectly square piece of food in this area but have failed miserably to find it.

There is one main commonality though- most of it came directly from plants. (Aside 2: I say most because people often confuse the fungi kingdom and the plant kingdom. Many people still think that there are 2 different kinds of organisms- plants and animals- despite the fact that there are actually 6 with animals being the least important in the grand scheme of things. End Aside 2.) The sellers just went out to the yard, cut a tree or part of one, and brought it in for us to buy. Some they pulled out of the ground and still have the dirt attached.

Here's the thing: you can eat that inexpensive, unplastic-laden food completely raw. No cooking necessary. No fancy recipes. I saw some of this exact same food at a restaurant last week. They combined several different items together and called it some wacky name. If I recall correctly, it was a 'salad'. And, for some reason, they charged $12 for a combination of food that would cost less than $5 and feed me several times over.

One of the major problems with food in this section is the lack of nutrition labels. None of the unpackaged food advertises its ingredients list, calorie count, or the all important number of grams of fat. In a nutshell, you really have no idea what you are getting. Machines haven't ripped the food apart and put it back together with other additives. How are we expected to put something in our system that hasn't been pre-digested? I don't think our bodies are ready for that.

Rumor has it that this food is actually quite nutritious. You might have to send it to an independent lab for analysis or simply look it up if you are curious (I've never been brave enough to check).

Anyway, about a month ago I finally developed the courage to actually purchase some of this food. It was insultingly cheap compared to the items found in the rest of the building. It felt like I was ripping them off and the girl at the checkout counter was not allowed to accept tips. (Aside 3: Either that or she was just creeped out by an ogre like me trying to offer her a couple of bucks. I've never been good with the ladies even while dangling cash. I'm not sure, but I might not be allowed back in that particular store until she leaves her position. End Aside 3.)

Yes, I paint my toes

To be honest, this food was actually quite tasty. I've been eating a lot of it lately. Further, I noticed an unexpected consequence: I've been losing weight. My scale (not that I believe anything it says) reports that I'm down 3 pounds in the past 3 weeks. I'm willing to accept that there might be some sort of coincidence here. I'm not one to apply causality to a correlation. But it does seem a little suspicious that my weight loss numbers were significantly better after I started eating more of this uncared for, dead, decaying organic matter just tossed out for anyone to take.

Anyway, I just thought I would share. It seems that many people don't know or under-use this section of the store. I admit that I was skeptical at first. Not only has my waistline gone down but my energy is up and so is my free cash, which I can now waste on non-thrift shop triathlon apparel.

The Weight Solution- Limit your losses

When you really look at it, weight gain and loss is a long-term function. Due to problems with comparing one day to the next day, you cannot know if you actually gained/ lost/ maintained weight on a daily regime. Our scales cannot provide you with that data. But, when taking into account the numbers over a long period of time, the trend makes itself obvious. All too often, people fall into the rut of:
1. Finally recognizing they want to lose weight
2. Starting off their weight gain 'systems' with high motivation
3. Give up when the results aren't immediately obvious

No one ever explained to them that the whole weight thing takes a long time. To illustrate my point, let's suppose you put on 20 pounds in the past year. I would not hesitate to say that a +20 pound Banter is a significant change and would be obvious to just about anyone. I would be most displeased with myself and be well over the Bar. This is would be, what I call, a big deal. I might go to a bad place for a while as I deal with the gain.

However, when you crunch the numbers, it's not that much. An extra 20 pounds per year breaks down to a surplus of less than 200 daily calories from a Calories In: Calories Out perspective. Less than 200 additional calories in. This would not, under any circumstances, be considered over eating by anyone's standards.

~200 Calories
1 candy bar
1 serving of chips
2 slices of bread
2 slices of cheese
2 cans of soda
1 bowl of soup
1/2 a blueberry muffin
1/2 a donut
1/2 a bagel
1 english muffin with butter
1/2 PB&J sandwich
2 apples

Can you imagine that? Today at the staff meeting, you split your obligatory donut with a friend. You both are losing weight. Bam, there's your extra 200 calories. Or worse, you ate an extra apple at lunch and then again at dinner. You pig! Do that on a daily basis and the result is a 20 pound annual weight gain.

My point here is that when you get right down to it, putting on 20 pounds per year is incredibly easy because it doesn't take much. An extra 200 calories won't show up on your scale tomorrow. Or next week. It might show up next month as 1 measly pound. You would have a hard time knowing if you put on an extra pound of fat or retained one glass of water.  200 calories won't expand your stomach. Won't change your attitude. You'd be hard pressed to actually identify the source of 200 calories in the first place. If you had an additional 70 calories per meal, which is rather minuscule when you really think about it, you have more than exceeded your 200 additional calories per day and are well on your way to gaining 20 pounds this year.

Lucky for you, the converse is also true. Remove 200 calories from your daily life and you lose 20 pounds. That means that you need to shed only 70 calories from each of your meals. Again, 70 calories per meal is not much. It's like eating 2 Oreo cookies instead of 3. Drop one can of soda and you are more than half way there.

And, on the Calories Out side of the equation, it really doesn't matter if you drop those calories via eating or via exercising. 200 calories is an extra 4000 steps per day. 2 miles of running. It is removing 1 granola bar plus doing 10 minutes on the elliptical.

I feel like I am starting to sound like one of those info-mercials. "You can get long, lean muscles in just 10 minutes per day." An you know what, these idiots are right. Here's where most people fail: you have to have a calorie deficit EVERY DAY. Not every other day. Not once a week. You must take the calories off daily. Which requires constant vigilance.

If you are doing/ did your homework, you'd know by now if you are gaining weight or losing weight. Don't stop weighing yourself at the same time daily. Record your results. If you are holding steady, increase your activity or decrease you food. Up to you. You could do both. If you are losing weight, you can use your numbers to figure out how well you are doing.

The math is fairly easy. Figure out how many pounds you want to lose. Add a zero at the end of the number. Viola- you have your daily calorie deficit. A 10 pound drop this year is roughly 100 calories per day. If you are interested in losing 30 pounds, you have to cut 300 calories. It's that simple.

Again, simple does not mean easy. You and I both know that following a food routine is one of the most difficult challenges on the planet. There are going to be those times when you fall off the wagon. For example: holiday meals, or when you eat an entire birthday cake all by your lonesome because your exceptionally beautiful wife doesn't really eat cake, or a SuperBowl party, or... the list can go on forever. This is one of the big reasons that you are logging your weight, food, and exercise. Falling off the wagon today does not require that you stay there. Jump back on immediately.

Remember, weight loss is a long-term goal. You are looking to be less you several months from now. Be patient. Do your homework. Do your exercise.

The Weight Problem- Part 5

It's here: the last installment of the "Why am I so Fat? Series. That could only mean one thing, I am eventually going to tell you what it takes to start dropping pounds. But not today. I have to close the door on the problems before I get to the solutions.


Despite the fact that we want to lose weight, we know next to nothing about it. We don't know what our actual weight is, we don't know how many calories we are eating, we don't know how many calories we are burning, and we don't even know how many calories we actually need. When it comes to the Calories In: Calories Out, those problems are academic. The last big problem is the real reason we put on excess pounds more efficiently than take them off.

Your Body Actually Wants You to Put On Weight
The fourth big problem on the list to the BIL, but the 5th and final in the series, is that it is significantly easier to consume an excess number of calories to induce weight gain than it is to shed the equal number of calories for weight loss. One pound is roughly 3500 calories. If your daily calorie intake is 2000 calories (which you can't know anyway), it is much more comfortable to eat 2500 calories a day resulting in dietary satiety. However, put yourself at 1500 calories for an entire week and your body rebels. Your stomach growls. You get headaches. Your energy wanes. If you eat, you feel better. A 500 calorie reduction will inevitably result in binge eating.


Here's the thing: your DNA has evolved safety switches to protect itself against perils. Pain is your body's way of telling you that something on the inside isn't working. Hunger is your body's way of telling you that something on the inside is empty. Life for Homo sapiens hasn't always been kind as it is today. Food was hard to come by. Animals were reluctant to be eaten by weird looking bipeds who were slow runners and smelled funny. As you probably know from experience, most plants out there are not as delicious as the vegetarians would have you believe. Mind you, there are a lot of delicious plants. Its just that they are less plentiful than the non-delicious ones. So when people found themselves in a situation that allowed for gluttony, they took full advantage. Their bodies, just like yours, had a system to storing excess energy as fat because that food wasn't going to stay around forever. 

Then, about 10,000 years ago, people decided to stop chasing animals and developed agriculture. 10K in years isn't that long to a strand of DNA. Some hypothesize that our DNA hasn't changed much since then. The abundance of food has changed dramatically. We are surrounded by ample supplies of high energy morsels of goodness that has made us picky beyond belief. You and I have both done the look-into-a-fridge-full-of-food thing only to announce that we 'have nothing to eat'. The reality is that we are spoiled rotten little brats when it comes to nutrition.


However, the abundance of food hasn't changed how our body responds. You eat. You are sated. You wait for a couple of hours while your innards breakdown, rearrange, distribute and store the excess. Once space opens up in the warehouse, your stomach sends a signal to your brain that says, "Feed me" and it's off to the grazing lot known as your kitchen. Your brain isn't wired to recognize IF the entire system actually needs the calories. It only obeys the chemical messages sent and responds by reverting all attention to finding food. It still believes that there is an inevitable famine heading our way and wants to prepare. Bam, you and I get fat.


Here's where the Calories In: Calories Out formula comes back to haunt you. It is way easier to tip the scale to the left hand side of the formula. You can trump the CO side by thousands of calories on a regular basis without consequence (well, except for the rise in blood pressure, risk of diabetes, risk of pancreatic cancer, and the like, but those don't count right now). You body accepts an excess of additional calories with open, and sometimes pudgy, arms. The exact moment you try and decrease your CI, or even increase your CO, even by just a little bit, your body starts up the Emergency Preparedness Plan. 

Warning alarms sound. This is not a drill. Button down the hatches and damn the torpedoes. And, seriously, somebody get me a sandwich. And a donut. No, I do not want an apple nor a salad. I want pizza. Your body sends out different chemical signals when eating high energy 'comfort foods' than when eating intelligent 'nutritious foods'. High fat and high carb meals send signals of satiety. Mmm, crisis averted. Aside: I have always found it astonishing that our systems have no alerts for vitamin and mineral deficiencies yet the lack of calories sonar comes through loud and clear. End Aside.


The result is that we put on pounds much easier than we take them off. Your body does not have an upper limit as to how much fat it is willing to accept. Plus, the change is normally slow enough that we don't see it on a daily basis. We follow our survival instincts, which means that we eat when food is plentiful. But, when food is always plentiful, there's no off-switch for the hunger. Eating begets more eating. Our stomachs are willing to expand to match our growing waistline and most people don't even know it is happening. 


So there you have it. Taking off weight is seriously hard. The odds are stacked in favor of packing on the jiggle. All hope is not lost. In my next post, I'll start sharing how to bring yourself down (to a better weight, I mean).

The Weight Problem- Part 4

I'm roughly 80% of the way through this series. I firmly understand why fat gain is more the norm than fat loss. There are so many problems on the way down. Whereas most people understand the concept that an excess of calories yields an overall bulge in your midsection, the actual measurement of said calories is seriously complicated. We can't really know how many calories go in nor can we accurately figure out how many calories come out. Now, I'm going to add one more layer of complication to the Calories In: Calories Out Equation.


How Many Calories Do You Need?

The fourth big problem (this was originally 3rd on the list to the BIL) is that few of us know how many calories we need to survive without gaining or losing weight. There is something very real called our "basal metabolism rate". This is basically the number of calories you need to consume for normal, everyday life without wasting away. See, your body has some basic functions which require energy. Maintaining a constant body heat of nearly 100º is one of your biggest calorie burns. Brain activity is another. You want your heart to keep pumping and your lungs to keep breathing, right? These things take energy.

Once you have met your BMR needs, the other stuff that happens in your life, such as exercise, starts to use up your calories. But, do understand, the number of calories you burn during the rest of your life pales in comparison to your BMR calories. For example, if you burned 2000 calories total today (which, of course, you don't know so please ignore that fact for now), about 1500 of that was most likely from your BMR, maybe 300 from your exercise (again, you don't know this either but this is a hypothetical situation so relax, ok), and 200 from the other crap that you do (such as work and reading boring, nonsensical blogs). If you really wanted to lose weight, you would start by satisfying your BMR needs via food, the tack on a few extra calories for the crap, and hold out on the rest. The pounds will just melt away.

But, do you know how many calories your body requires to do these most basic aspects of life? Nope. Me neither. There's a very high probability that less than 1% of the population (and I'm estimating high) has the means and knowledge to calculate their real BMR. This is most unfortunate as your BMR is the single highest user of your calories. The energies that go into maintaining homeostasis are very high, using more than 60% of your daily energy usage. The number may be as high as 75%. However, in terms of the actual number of calories being burned, well that number is as elusive as the Banter putting forth a decent Ironman marathon run.

Further, there is no good way to physically measure your BMR. That sucks. There are a few estimate charts out there but they are as reliable as the 220-(your age) for calculating heart zones- completely unreliable. Just to prove the point, I calculated my BMR using a few of the online calculators. Most of the calculators follow the same principle. They have a formula developed by some scientist that includes a multiple number of variables. Apparently, the most important aspects of BMR are your gender, current weight (which is impossible for you to know anyway), height (a little easier to know), and age (which you should hopefully know). The formulae are complicated. They multiple those numbers by some constants, such as how many hairs you have growing on your left arm, and added them to some other constants, such as how many viable sperm or ova that currently reside in your body (It's amazing what scientists can glean from minuscule bits of info). I plugged in the exact same numbers in each situation. Here are the results:

Bachelorette #1 tells me my BMR is a third of the way through the 1700 calorie arena.  Bachelorette #2 tells me I need to consume 200 calories less than #1. Almost as if she was listening to the whole conversation and really wanted the date, Bachelorette #3 decided to take the middle ground. At least #3 admits that this is only a best guess.

Do you see why this whole weight loss embarkation is so challenging? When it comes to the important information required to intelligently make decisions about how much goes into and out of our bodies, we are completely clueless. Don't worry, I do plan on helping out. If you can make it through the week, I promise we'll start working on a solution for you and get you on the road to meeting your weight loss goals. Hang in there.

The Weight Problem- Part 3

In my original message to the BIL, this problem was the fifth big problem is calculating exercise calories. However, in the progression of the Weight Loss Series, it made more sense to bump this one up to 3rd place. I've already told you that your bathroom scale is not all that reliable. Whereas I'm pretty sure that the Calories In: Calories Out Theory of Weight Loss is just about perfect, there is no way to accurately figure out how many calories went in. Don't worry, the other half of the equation is just as unhelpful as the former. So much for perfection.

Helmet hair?

Calories Out Sucks Too
Let's forget for a moment that calories are a unit of heat. That's right, heat. Not mass. A semi-famous man named Albert Einstein (whom I'm pretty sure was a triathlete and I'll tell you about his SBR adventures in a future post) postulated that there is a direct relationship between mass and energy in his formula E=mc^2. Whereas his formula only loosely applies here, the concept that energy and mass are linked remains. Your body studied Einstein since long before you can remember and is rather adept at using the heat stored in food, AKA calories, as an energy reserve stored as mass, AKA you.

According to a lot of resources (which I am inclined to believe), one mile on your feet at just about any pace is about 100 calories =/- 25. You burn the same number of calories whether you walk a mile or run a mile. That's at least a 25% margin of error. Are you closer to the 75 mark or the 125 mark? I have no idea and neither do you. 

No pedaling= No calories

Trying to estimate your calorie burn on the bike is even worse. There are so many variables that affect biking to a greater extent than running. The wind and the terrain are at the top of the list. You probably burn the same number of calories at any effort per mile on the bike. The problem arises when you start coasting. How much you did NOT pedal becomes an important aspect in calorie estimation. Bikes are nice in that if you stop pedaling, your forward momentum keeps you moving. Coasting on the bike is equivalent to stopping on the run. You burn no calories but you still are working towards your distance goal. It's win-win, except if you are actually trying to burn those calories. 

Swimming is horrid. Calorie burn is mainly dependent on water temperature and stroke efficiency. The first is relatively easy to measure (if you are not sure how to find water temperature, please stop reading and go back to elementary school science). Cooler temperatures, to a certain degree (pun intended), are inversely proportional to the number of calories you burn. You body burns calories to cool you down via the sweat process. In cooler temperatures, your body doesn't have to expend as much energy on your air conditioning. Still, we don't know how much cooling you need nor how well your body runs the AC. All of this holds true as long as you keep swimming. Stop for a minute and the system shuts down, then reverses to a warming system. Seem complicated? That's because it is. The second variable, efficiency, is harder to define and impossible to measure.

We Can't Really Measure Calories
The biggest issue with measuring your calorie output in terms of weight loss is that we have no real convenient way to measure how many calories we burn during exercise. The most efficient way to measure calories in an object is through calorimetry. During calorimetry, an object is placed in a well insulated, sealed chamber and subsequently incinerated. The amount of heat released during incineration is used to calculate the amount of calories stored in the object because heat is conserved. In practice, scientists have found very few athletes who are willing to discover their calorie information via calorimetry, thus the sample set for this data is quite small. There are other less-efficient ways to measure your calories but these methods are expensive and can require the subject to be placed under excruciating conditions.
 

http://www.firstbeattechnologies.com/files/VO2_Estimation.pdf

Indirect methods are needed and even they aren't that accurate. Many of you have seen the calorie burning charts on the treadmill at gym. You try to hit the cardio zone or the fat burning zone. How in the world does the machine know this? The calorie burning system varies from one individual to the next. Some of you out there may have a device commonly called a heart rate monitor that will give you a calorie estimation. The problem is that the makers of these devices have never met you nor calibrated their system to meet your specific output. These devices use an algorithm based on the preconceived average of the people that they have data on. None of them are you. Look at the chart above, using HR to calculate your calorie burn is at best 20% inaccurate.

So we have this genius of a formula- Calories In: Calories which will accurately predict if you lose weight. Burn more calories than you consume, viola! weight loss. Again, you and I have absolutely no idea how many calories go in to our bodies nor how many go out. Maybe I'll change my opinion on the formula from 'genius' to 'crappy'. How good is a formula that is 100% right but completely inapplicable to everyone in all aspects? How can we be expected to lose weight under these conditions? Why am I so fat?

In the next post, I'll tell you even more reasons why the weight loss gods are out to get you. When I am done with the series, I'll start a new series to show you how to actually lose weight. If you actually listen is up to you. It'll get worse before it gets better. Stick around.

The Weight Problem- Part 2

In my last post, I laid down the ground work for why you and your bathroom scale have actually no idea as to how much you weigh. That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to trying to lose weight. Now here, in Part 2, the problem gets even more complicated. This one is completely your fault, except that it isn't. 

You and I Are Pigs but We Don't Know How Much
I keep a meticulous record my exercise habits through the efficiency of gps technology. At any given moment on any given day I can tell you about my workout. If you have some time to kill, feel free to ask. I can ramble on about all sorts of data. My Garmin is a god and I worship it diligently. I look at the numbers, paces, times, training zones, efforts, hill profiles, and whatever else I can squeeze out of the device. There was even a time that I recorded how I felt during the workout and what my mood was like pre and post. (I read somewhere that elite athletes did that and I have delusions of grandeur. I am past that now.)

There is a high probability that the "Calories In: Calories Out" theory of weight lose/ gain is dead on. Should you consume more calories than you burn, you gain weight. Should you burn more than you consume, you lose weight. The most common way to get calories into your body is through your mouth (there are other ways to get calories into your body but I'd rather not discuss them at this time). This equation is flawed in many ways. Currently, I'm going to focus on the misgivings of the products side of the formula...

The second big problem about weight is how little data we actually have about our dietary habits. I couldn't tell you exactly how many chips I ate out of the bag. I'm pretty confident I ate at least half of the bag. What was the weight of the chicken breast I cooked for dinner? The serving size says, '1 chicken breast' yet a brief look in the bag will tell me that not all chickens have the same sized breasts. I have no idea if that was the fowl version of an A-cup or a DD.  How many ounces of rice did I just consume? Am I supposed to measure that pre or post cooking? How many grapes? How many cookies were in that sleeve of thin mints (because I know I ate them all)? Nobody eats just 4 thin mints in a single sitting. I'm pretty sure that science has already proven that.

As if to further complicate the problem, the manufacturers don't really know how many calories are in their products either. Are the Girl Scouts of America a reliable source of culinary accuracy? (Because we all know that the kid who knocked on my door selling cookies has a hand in making them). Look at the picture of the thin mints. Drool a little bit. Then look at the number of servings in the box. "About 8". See the problem? They don't have an exact number. Eating the whole box (which I, um, may have done as recently as yesterday) gives me 'about' 1280 calories. They don't even have to common courtesy of sharing the margin of error. 

Since you and I suck so much, digital technology wants to help. There are so many programs out there that will accurately calculate your food intake for you. At a simple glance, there was more than 300 iPhone apps (that was all I had the patience to calculate). There are many more options available on the internet, all of them awesome. But, each of these require constant attention and multiple inputs on a daily basis. That means, in order to honestly, and correctly, identify the number of calories floating around in our bellies at any given time, we have to log our gluttony 3-10 times a day. We have to count how many chips. We have to weigh our beef. No wonder the old lady couldn't find it.

Even with digital technology, there are flaws in the system. Look at the calorie information on an apple as reported by caloriecount.com. This is a great resource with incredibly accurate information. I have an Gala apple packed in my daily lunch. I have absolutely no idea how many grams are in my apple. Further, I don't know how much of the apple I have to eat in order to get 74 calories of a 152 gram pomme. How much of the top and bottom? How close to the core? Even with meticulous recording, I suspect the error could be as great as 7 calories in the apple. That doesn't seem like much until you realize that equals 10%. Ten percent is a significant number in terms of size.

I have a call out to Garmin and we are working on a deal. I already own the FR310xt watch. I have 2 wireless Speed and Cadence sensors for my bikes. I have the Ant+ wireless data transfer device. I am looking in to getting the Footpod sensor. They have available a bathroom scale which will wirelessly transfer your weight straight to the internet. They are powermeter compatible, including their own radical Pedal Sensor. My contact was about none of these. I want Garmin to develop a "Food and Beverage Intake Sensor." The idea would be that I would strap this thing on and it would automatically record how many food and drink calories I am consuming in a day. I envision a device that would be embedded in your mouth near your glottis or surgically implanted near your esophageal sphincter muscle. I have not solved the how-can-I-change-the-batteries- in- the- device conundrum just yet. Garmin seemed rather pessimistic on the phone and wanted me to get an interest vote before they put the forth the funds in Research and Development. Please let me know.

Even in the best efforts, we honestly have no clue as to the number of calories we swallow on any given day. At best, we can get a rough estimate. Even though the Calories In: Calories Out concept is a pretty good gauge of whether or not we will lose weight, we can't get accurate information on the Calories In part of the equation. There's no accurate way (unless Garmin comes through for me) to gather that information. Phew, that's the gist of my 2nd big problem with this whole weight lose scheme.

(Please be advised that there are, in my calculations, 5 big problems. At least, that's as high as I can count, so I doubt I'll be researching for whatever number comes after 5. Keep in mind that after I lay down the problems, I am going to lay down some solutions.)

The Weight Problem- Part 1

Last week, the BIL shot me an email. As you may know, I have started on the endeavor to shed a few pounds in a venture to get down a respectable race weight. The BIL wants in on the action. In a bit of frustration, he wrote to share what an awesome training week he had (which was true) and to announce that he had actually gained weight.

Now, undoubtedly due to my poor reading skills and my manliness desire to fix all problems even if they aren't a problem, I decided to shoot back a 10,000 word essay on the plight of shedding pounds. The BIL was in awe. Mostly because I am a fantastic genius of a writer I had pounded out so much content to answer a question that wasn't asked. He reminded me of something in his response of which I need constant reminders due to the pea-size of my brain: He already knew all of that.

Therefore, my homework assignment off to the BIL was completely wasted until I had this fantastic idea of sharing it with the general public, I.E. You. But, I am going to you a favor and break up the content into manageable pieces. So, here's part 1 in it's embellished entirety:

You and Your Bathroom Scale Suck

One problematic fact about your (or mine or anyone's) weight is that their is no efficient way to measure it. I know, you have a bathroom scale. Step on the flat piece of plastic, wait a second or two, and magically a number appears that will mark your emotional state of being for the day depending on its size in relation to the last time you stepped on. Mine even takes measurement to the next level: it offers a body fat percentage should I ask it politely. Oddly, with this space aged built-in technology, my scale is repeatedly off by 5 pounds as compared to the doctor's office. 

(Not that I would know this, I am a male and don't go to the doctor all that often. However, the Wife is not inflicted with the Male Ego gene and therefore will go to the Dr for her regularly scheduled appointments, physical, obgyn, and now PT for her ailing knee. She has ample data points showing our scale is consistently heavy by 5 pounds. And, like any smart guy in a relationship, I have learned that it's best not to argue the point. She's probably right.)

The scale is not the problem. It is calibrated to measure the pull of the Earth's gravitational field on your body mass mighty nicely (or in my case n+5). You (or me or anyone) are the problem. Our weight fluctuates throughout a single day for a large number of reasons. The main one is water retention. We can't always predict when our body is going to retain water or shed it. There are a few things that we can do to manage our water, such as eating/ avoiding salty food, reading semi-entertaining blogs, exercise habits, stress levels, medications, etc. 

When you weigh yourself at one time and then re-weigh at a different time, you take a gamble on your current level of water retention, which shows up nicely on your scale. Water is a rather heavy molecule. One glass is 8 ounces which is half a pound. You bladder can hold up to about a pound of water. But, this doesn't take into account the excess fluid floating around in your blood, stored in your muscles, embedded in your fat layers, hanging out in your belly, or missing from your brain.

Why I am so focused on the single, most abundant chemical in your body? For one, water is somewhere between 57-75% of your body mass. That's right, you are mostly a saltwater environment ripe for fish to develop an ecosystem. For two, the other major chemicals, commonly referred to as organics, are relatively stable. Your body fat, protein, and carbs are rather consistent in terms of body mass. No amount of exercise will decrease your fat by one pound in a day. No amount of weight lifting will increase your body protein (which we call muscle) by a pound in a day. However, drinking an abundance of liquid can drastically increase your scalar numbers. If that drink is alcohol-based, your body's defense system will send all available water to battle the booze resulting in a net-loss of pounds. The problem is that you aren't any less fat. Or, in the case of the ethanol-soaked goodness, you might actually be more fat than when you started drinking.

Still, you and I are both creatures of habit. Everyday we hop on the scale wanting the number to be different than the time before and think that we have accomplished something when the number is smaller. This method of measurement is destructive in nature. Our weight naturally changes throughout the day, mostly based on our water levels despite how much we hope it's due to a change in the gravitational pull. Our true weight, the one we want to change, remains hidden at all times. We cannot really measure it without that pesky water getting in the way.

Don't worry, it's not all for naught. I will tell you how to measure and get the results you want (though I doubt you'll actually want to do it). The bathroom scale will play an important role in the process, but you'll have to wait until I get down rambling on about the problems before I get to the solution. 

(Keep in mind that the BIL got all of this in one full swoop. You are getting off easy).