It sure looks like it to me, the hand kind of makes it appear to be one GIANT boob but oh well. Its actually *I hope* a woman holding a swollen baby cocoon, natch.
I was thinking about my helium posting habits and decided to cut back on volume in favor of a slightly better output. After all in these days quantity takes a back seat to quality...ha!
Actually, as per usual, my thoughts have largely dwelt on tech and swimming.
Specifically the progress I am making with my moderate weight loss strategy in its current form. All in all I have dropped a few pounds, maybe 5-10 but without 20 hours to devote solely to exercise per week I am just not seeing the same dramatic hoohah of the olden days.
Sucks!
But there could be hope. I did some checking on the wide and dubious internet recently and found a slew of conflicting caloric info. Consider the examples I found for differences across a plethora *no pinatas* of sites. For each site I tried to gauge the benefit of 1 hour of swimming at various activity levels. I put an hour because while I usually swim upwards of 1.5 hours I rest and stretch and slack a little when my brain goes off on some long tangent and before I know it I am rambling on about caterpillars liking socks over shirts or...SHIT! It just happened.
Anyway here are the results. 60 minutes and weight remain more or less constant.
Self.com
Light - 572
Moderate - 667 (Ram Speed!!)
Vigorous - 1048
Nutristrategy
Light - N/A
Moderate - 690
Vigorous - 960
Coolnurse
Light - N/A
Moderate - 720
Vigorous - N/A
*Healthstatus
Light - 580
Moderate - 756
Vigorous - 932
Diet and Fitness Today
Light - N/A
Moderate - 756
Vigorous - N/A
Calorie Count
Light - N/A
Moderate - 476
Vigorous - 680 (that's 22.7 carrots!!)
Health A to Z
Light - N/A
Moderate - 725
Vigorous - 908
Averaging all this out equals...
Light - (572+580)/2 = 576 (I did that one in my head)
Moderate - (667+690+720+756+756+476+725)/8 = 599 [=617 without the Calorie Count]
Vigorous - (1048+960+932+680+908)/5 = 905.6 [=962 without the Calorie Count]
I don't really care enough to get standard deviations and all that but its a pretty big difference at first glance. Sadly I don't really feel any more educated I am just frustrated because there's a shit load of variables and unknowns. Consider the relevant factors.
Stroke Composition: Percentages of relevant strokes IE freestyle, breaststroke and all that.
Stroke Efficiency: Poorer swimmers burn more calories by distance because they waste energy flailing around, self correcting and
Buoyancy: Fat people drag more but have to spend fewer calories propelling themselves upwards so at a given rate of speed a chunky butt like myself is skimming along while the denser person tends to sink and constantly has to adjust for it.
Water viscosity: This is probably fairly constant but you never know. Someone does I am sure.
Water Temperature vs Waste Heat: Swimmers are water-cooled athletes. Sure landies can sweat which evaporates and pulls heat away but swimmers get direct heat dispersal via convection. Naturally being cooler helps muscles last longer and work harder but you're constantly churning up waste heat which has to be replaced to maintain your body temp. Naturally at 80 degrees you'll lose heat much more slowly than at 60 *it would be almost unbearable to swim at this temp, I know.
And finally there's the Hot Girl Factor: Something I noticed *but NEVER did myself* being around male swimmers and girls in bathing suits is that pacing and timing can be shot straight to hell by the arrival and actions of sexy people. Its distracting and you might miss a breath or bang your head during a flip turn or just try and crank out a higher speed to keep up (I hate getting passed by anyone but if its a girl that's just sad) To put it without the brazen clang of misogyny the other people at the pool will affect how well you swim. Maybe not during a meet but during practice its always a factor.
Sadly there's just no good way to measure all these variables, none that I can find on the internet anyways.
More on that later.
No comments:
Post a Comment