Calories schmalories

Sat, Feb 18 '12 at 10:07am (last updated Fri, Sep 28 '12 at 9:25am); filed under fitness and nerdism.

I’m a calorie bore. I’m not yet an obsessive, just a bore. There’s a thin line betwixt the too, but I’m on the safe side of that line. I pay more attention to what’s in the food I eat, these days, and if I can avoid excessively fatty or unhealthy food I tend to. I also look at the calories I’ve burned after each walk, thanks to the whizzy RunKeeper thingy I have, and I’ll soon be entering into a new phase of calorie nerdism: how can I most efficiently burn 1,000 calories. It used to take me 7+ miles of walking and two hours to chug through 1,000 calories – it was an epic Abingdon outer ring road walk, plus some wandering down by the Thames, that I could only practically do at the weekend due to the amount of time involved. I eventually squeezed that two hour walk down to under 100 minutes, while at the same time ensuring that the magical 1,000 calorie barrier had been passed. I’m not so fond of the monolithic walk around the outer ring road, now – it’s a bit boring, if I’m honest, and the idea that I can’t just jack it in and come home relatively easily if I get too tired is another factor against it.

Some quick sums indicate that I can, all being well, increase my town centre ring road circuits to five or six, and keep up a pace over 3.5mph for the duration I can get 1,000 calories zapped in 90 minutes. That’s an hour and a half of my day, each day. My days are fuller and longer than they used to be, I don’t feel a requirement to sleep as long as I used to, and getting up early in the morning is no real hardship. Here’s the thing: I reckon with a bit of practise I can get up, go for a 90 minute stomp, get home, showered and ready for work for 9am. Add to this the fact that I no longer have any desire for crud food I can bounce through my day without even watching portion size or what I’m eating.

I dread to think what I’ll look and feel like when I’m rowing each day, too, though I suspect a 90-minute, 1,000 calorie walk and rowing is the wrong side of insane.

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