So yesterday I was walking and I had this thought. I was thinking about trying to lose weight and all that sort of thing, and how I didn’t remember having any problems at all with weight in high school, and how I ate pretty much anything I wanted, and then it hit me:
I exercised at least 1.5 hours a day in high school. Often more. I swam every day and I took dance classes for half of high school and I periodically joined stupid, stupid sports like track or cross country, and I thought, well, shit, no wonder I didn’t have weight problems.
And, yeah, okay, argument: life as an adult is busier. Eh. I donno. 8 or 9 hours a day at school, 2 hours of swim practice, very frequently theatre rehearsals in the evening, homework (not that I did a lot of it), and I still had hours and hours and hours to talk on the phone with my friends (my parents will attest to this). I don’t think I’m any busier as an adult than I was in school. I’m just not doing the same things, and that includes not exercising 90 minutes a day.
Except lately I’ve been walking 3-4 miles a day, which at my pace takes about 80 minutes, and really, it’s *really* not hard to make the time to do that. Now, walking hasn’t got anything like the calorie-burning oomph that swimming does, so as a weight-loss program it’s only so-so, but the *point* is that it’s *really* not that hard for me to spare an hour or two for exercise. And I’m really enjoying my walks. One might go so far as to extrapolate that I am indeed enjoying… *exercise*!
Actually, I like exercising. It’s just so easy to convince myself I don’t have time or energy, which is stupid. Especially as I’m proving imperically that it’s untrue. Emperically? I should look that word up.
I had a point when I started writing this two hours ago, but I’ve lost it now.
miles to Rivendell: 275.5
Perhaps it’s hard to write while walking? Doesn’t the pencil jiggle a lot on the paper?
Next Project: Swim to the West!
It also helps that when you’re younger, your body uses at least some of your calories to funnel into things like growth. :)
along with mony’s point about calories being funneled into development, the metabolism is generally faster when you’re younger. Sadly, we’re in the stage of life where our metabolisms have started slowing down. Also, when we were younger and in school (incl. college) there was a lot more “incidental” movement, i.e., walking between classes, to the lunch room, to the bus stop, to the mall, whatever….As “grownups” our incidental exercise decreases….we sit at our desks for longer periods of time, there is less call to walk between places, and so on….All those little short strolls between classes (esp. in college, but still true in h.s.) add up….
Yay! I’m glad that you’re enjoying the walks, too. With all this Indian Summer happening here, we’ve been going out for walks in the evenings, too. It’s been really nice. We bring a wagon along for Jet, when he gets tired, he hops in and sings while we walk. *grin* It’s pretty cool.
*laugh* Jet’s a cutie. :) That sounds very nice indeed. :)