I think I\u2019ve gotten lazy. I sit in\nthis chair and watch TV or play on my computer. I haven\u2019t gotten out to hike in\na long time, despite the fact that the weather has not been unpleasantly cold\nwith this disconcertedly mild winter. And though I had plans to use my metal\ndetector often, it sits and collects dust. Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 we get out;\nshopping of one sort or another several times a week; out to eat twice a week;\nto the movies several times a month \u2013 so it is not all chair time. And I still get\nout in the yard to do odds and end, mostly firewood related. In fact, I just\nmoved six or seven wheelbarrow loads of wood this morning. But now I am sitting\nagain; and bemoaning that fact here, now, with this missive. Odd creatures we\nare! (Or at least am I.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The human mind is deceptively clever\nat rationalization; it can convince us of most anything it wants. That is to\nsay, anything that we want but won\u2019t immediately allow ourselves. A good\nexample of this is the eternal battle of the unholy trilogy: weight, food, and exercise.\nI know this is rudimentary, but it bears a moment of discussion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Food contains calories, in varying\namounts according to the ingredients. There is precious little in the food category\nthat has no calories \u2013 celery has next to none for example. On the other hand a\nburger at a restaurant can run you one thousand calories alone, never mind the\nfries and drink. And sadly, depending on ingredients and dressing, a salad can\nrival that burger in caloric value. I say \u201csadly\u201d because people often order a\nsalad thinking they are eating healthy and low calorie. It is mind boggling how\nmany calories are in some foods when you examine the caloric content of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exercise burns calories \u2013 far less than\nmany assume. For example, walking a dog for a half hour only burns 100 calories\nfor a 150lb person; weightlifting for that same half hour changes nothing \u2013 it remains\nat 100 calories, while jogging for the same half hour only raises it to 240\ncalories. An hour on an elliptical machine will burn 340 calories while a one-hour\nhike though, will burn 410 calories. (Another reason to get out into the woods\nand hike!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our bodies are all slightly different\nin how they burn calories, but I emphasize the word slightly; overall,\nmetabolic rates aside, it is much the same for each person but with a modifier:\ncalories required depend upon age, weight, and level of exercise. The less you weigh,\nthe less calories you can consume without gaining weight. The less you\nexercise, the less calories you can consume without gaining weight. And the\nolder you are, the less calories you can consume without gaining weight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some examples: you are a thirty-year-old\nperson who weighs 150lbs and exercises 3-4 times per week; you can take in over\n2500 calories per day without gaining weight. But the same person at 110lbs and\nonly doing light exercise can only consume 1800 calories per day without\ngaining weight. As for me, I can manage 1900 calories a day without gaining\nweight. And every year that number grows smaller since we don\u2019t burn calories\nas efficiently as we get older. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we humans, many of us anyway, look\nat food and grossly underestimate the calories in it (\u201cWell, it\u2019s a small donut\nso it can\u2019t be more than 100 calories\u201d), and we walk for 20 minutes and grossly\noverestimate the amount of calories we just burned (\u201cWell that walk just burned\noff that donut I ate this morning\u201d). And many of us eat like we were still 25\neven though we\u2019re over 50 now. The end result is we gain weight and don\u2019t understand\nwhy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it gets worse. We look at a cookie\nand want it but know we shouldn\u2019t. And then our mind rationalizes for us,\nwithout it even being asked to; \u201cwell, it\u2019s a small cookie and I had a diet\nsoda with lunch\u2026.and I will be moving those boxes up into the attic Saturday\nand that will burn a lot of calories, so one cookie won\u2019t hurt\u201d. And without a\nsecond thought, we eat the cookie. The mind\u2019s power of rationalizing and enabling\nbehaviors with bad consequence is astounding! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Forewarned is forearmed as they say \u2013\nif you\u2019ve been told about it beforehand, you are armed and prepared for when it\nhappens. So as I sit in this chair and type, I am fully aware of how my mind is\nhard at work justifying the seat-time. Just witness my sixth sentence in this: \u201cIn\nfact, I just moved six or seven wheelbarrow loads of wood this morning.\u201d How\u2019s\nthat for classic rationalization? So those loads of wood probably weighed\naround 500lbs per load since there were six or seven loads, that\u2019s between 3000\nand 4000lbs. Easy to make yourself believe you burned off the whole day\u2019s food\nintake and you can relax and sit for a while. But the reality is that I probably\ndidn\u2019t even burn 200 calories doing that. And I am burning nothing sitting here\ntyping. And I will go out to eat tonight and will likely take in close to 2000\ncalories, if not more, depending upon what I choose from the menu. So despite the\nbest efforts of my brain to make me feel justified to sit here, I know I will\ngain a little bit of weight for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But where it gets hazy for me is this:\nI worked my ass off for the last 45 years or so. Often ten, twelve, or even fourteen-hour\ndays and often six or seven days a week. And for many years, it was hard physical\nlabor in extremely difficult and arduous conditions. And the final 20 years,\nwhile less physical, weighed heavily with responsibility and stress. I feel,\nvery strongly, that I have earned the right to park my ass in this chair and\nsit. And to bolster that, I spent everyday outside doing something the first\nsix or seven months after I retired: wood cutting, wood splitting, hiking, digging\nrocks out of the ground, clearing those damned bull briars, and so on. And not\nfor a half hour here or there, but for five and six hours at a clip \u2013 in the\nsummer sun. So I think I deserve to sit for a while\u2026I just need to be sure I am\nright in thinking that and it is not my mind rationalizing my choice. Think I\nneed to sit and ponder this for a while!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ultimately, dear reader, I know I am\nnot lazy. And I know that everything in life requires balance including resting\nand working, eating and exercising, and a million other things. But knowing how\neasy it is to fall into a bad habit or poor routine, I try to shut off my mind\nand view myself \u2013 my behaviors \u2013 from afar, objectively. As I have written in\nthe past, from Socrates: \u201cThe unexamined life is not worth living.\u201d We should\nall take a moment from time to time to examine our current station and decide, objectively,\nif we are living as we should. It is never too late to make a course\ncorrection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I think I\u2019ve gotten lazy. I sit in this chair and watch TV or play on my computer. I haven\u2019t gotten out to hike in a long time, despite the fact that the weather has not been unpleasantly cold with this disconcertedly mild winter. And though I had plans to use my metal detector often, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanity","entry","has-media"],"yoast_head":"\n