Slippery

Some days you slip into old patterns, like today: I slept very late and then wasted a lot of time surfing the net and playing new trial games on my new Treo (Who can resist Mars Needs Cows? Particlarly when I couldn't seem to stop the game without resetting my device). and now it's afternoon. I wanted to go to the gym, have lunch, and then get to the studio before choir tonight and I'm realizing that one of those things may have to go. Or not. I suppose I could pack a sandwich and eat it at the studio after going to the gym. I may have to do that. Is there anything inherently wrong with this? I suppose not. But my house is a wreck, the dust bunnies are stampeding, and the laundry hamper looks like it's thrown up all over the hall floor.

Meanwhile leftover pizza with anchovies calls seductively to me from the fridge. And it's freaking freezing out. Yesterday was easier, I had my running group to buoy me along, although we only had 4 of us show up again, and nobody had a digital watch so we couldn't time our intervals properly. I ended up just counting strides, and it went ok, I was only a couple of minutes out when we got back to the fitness center. It was a crappy lousy night. Wind, rain and snow. The footing was threatening to freeze and our feet got wet so we didn't get to the OA meeting we usually go to afterward, but the run was good. The crappier the weather, the better I feel after. I think it has something to do with feeling like a road warrior. Although it may backfire on me in some way because after runs like that I turn into an utter slug for the rest of the night, so there is probably some sort of metabolic karmic levelling (how's that for a mixed metaphor?)

That reminds me of this NY Times article about the differences in exercise results they found in people in one study: some people lost weight, some didn't, some even gained over a short (3 month) period. Keep in mind this was a very small, short term study of 35 people. Those of us who have been around the weight loss track a few times realize that 3 months is no indication of long term weight gains or loss, or sadly, both. The researchers theorized that the variations may be because subject's eating changed in response to the exercise, or even more tricky, people's resting metabolic rates may change in response to the exercise as the body tries to conserve calories.

Darn that old survival instinct, anyway. Maybe some day our bodies won't try to hold on to every last calorie to survive nonexistent famines, but that may take a few millennia, and who knows what our world will be like then?

Alright, gotta go, can feel my metabolism slipping! Creeeeeeakkkk....