5.2/205

That number is the number of calories burned vs my year end goal. Now I know what you're thinking. It's June, the year is almost halfway over and in order to meet that goal you'd have to burn over 1000 surplus calories everyday (and that span includes christmas AND thanksgiving and those fools close the gym that day)

It's a pisser but one is not so easily deterred. Since I didn't start in January I don't intend to END in january. Instead I hope to meet or exceed this goal by May 1st 2009 assuming I don't get hit by a bus or anything like that.

The number is the sum total of kilo calories one would need to burn 50 english pounds of good ol' adipose tissue. My calculation goes like this. One Kilogram = 1000 grams = 2.2lbs. Therefore a pound = 455 grams (rounded from 454.54) And since one gram of fat contains nine kilocalories then 455 grams = 4,095.

Multiply by 50lbs and you get 204,750. After that simply apply the comfortable human number formula and you end up with a nice round aesthetically pleasing figure of 205 megacalories.

I know what you're thinking. 205 million calories sounds comically impossible but the vernacular usage of 'calorie' is actually referring to a kilocalorie. The crucial difference being that a single calorie can raise the temp of a gram of water by one degree while a kilo calorie raises a kilogram of water one degree.

Therefore over the past two weeks after 7 discrete workouts I have racked up 5.2 megacalories. Hopefully tomorrow will round it off to an even 6.0.

Now I know this is a faulty metric and it does not reflect the true balance of intake/calories burned because I can't very well know exactly what I have burned vs eaten and I don't want it to become a numbers game. This is an effort of will, to be exerted over a long period of time and hopefully my self-project for the year will culminate in nothing more than a few less notches on the belt.

What worries me is that at my current rate, assuming swimming goes well tomorrow then I'll have accumulated 6 megs in two weeks. At the rate of only 3 megacalories a week I would only rack up 156 over a 52 week period.

Bumping up to 4 would make it just under but I am already 5 weeks into this project and I am not counting all the hiking/natural laxatives experienced in Thailand.

4.234 megacalories burned, every single week until the end of April of next year. That sounds superficially high but today I racked up .8 megs in just over an hour. If I can just quintuple that every week I'll be in great shape in no time.

I just hope the Eschaton leaves me alone.