Exercise update:

Still Spinning, 3 days per week! It’s been 4 weeks as of tomorrow. I still love it!

Still in boot camp, 3 days per week! That’s will be 3 weeks as of tomorrow.

6 days per week total exercise.

Thank goodness I am still thinking it’s fun! But I do miss running a bit.

 

My metabolism was tested by Paul’s little breath machine thing and it says at REST all day my metabolic rate is 1800 calories per day. That means if I did nothing but lay in bed all day, I’d burn 1800 calories to keep my normal body functions going. That’s pretty high, actually. Most women should be around 1400-1500 if they’re not exercising. I assume my high metabolic rate is due to the exercise 6 days per week. I eat around 1600 calories per day (up from 1400 the past few weeks). Each boot camp session burns around another 400 calories beyond that 1800 calories, per my heart rate monitor. Each spin class burns another 500.

 

Do the math, and the scale should be going down, down, down. In typical Tara-exercise fashion, it’s not. It’s going up, up, up. All the research points to the involvement of muscle work, glycogen’s use as energy for those muscles, and the fact that glycogen is hydrophilic (it likes water). Long story short, the gains are probably water. In fact I am technically 4lbs heavier than when I started all this exercise. And no, it’s not muscle gain (that takes more time).

 

And no, my clothes aren’t fitting looser.

 

There’s nothing like an rise in the scale numbers to serve as a de-motivator if you’re looking to actually LOSE weight. Incidentally, EVERY SINGLE TIME I’ve ever taken boot camp in the last 10 years I’ve lived here, the scale has always gone up, up, up. Completely freaking me out every single time. So this is nothing really new. Every time I’ve ever lost weight, it’s been based on diet ONLY. No exercise involved.

 

Paul swears if I stick to this another few weeks, the scale will start dramatically moving downward. What I can say about this is that really I only started spinning because I need to train for the MS150. Not to lose weight. I started boot camp because I need muscles (for increased metabolism) and strength. Definitely not to lose weight.

 

And look, it’s a good thing I didn’t set myself up mentally to lose weight. But let’s face it, I SHOULD BE LOSING WEIGHT. The big number conflicts in my mind between the metabolism, the 2800 calories burned per week in exercise, the calorie deficit in my diet, and what’s happening with the scale is just so damn perplexing. Really, weight loss should be a nice side effect of all of this work. Don’t you think?

 

It’s just weird. Calories in and calories out. Why all of this complication? I’m picking this to death and picking Paul’s brain to death.

 

Anyway, I just imagine that by April 16-17 (the weekend of the MS150), I’m going to kick ass on those hills thanks to Spin class, and just QUITE POSSIBLY look decent in those bike shorts (frankly, not many people look decent in those biking shorts). So I’ll just keep going. Plus, frankly, it’s fun!