Complex Numbers

Red Queen's Race

While we're on the subject of weight loss...

https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11518804/weight-loss-exercise-myth-burn-calories

Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight, explained with 60+ studies

Oh look, another "You're Doing It Wrong" article! - or is it?

"I'm going to make you work hard," a blonde and perfectly muscled fitness instructor screamed at me in a recent spinning class, "so you can have that second drink at happy hour!"

Remember yesterday when I said I wouldn't be caught dead in a spin(ning) class? This reinforces that.

Anyway, the article dives into some science, much of which could stand to be replicated or at least extended. When it comes to nutrition (or, in this case, exercise) science, I approach it with a healthy (pun intended, as always) dose of skepticism.

And I'm not going to quote a lot from it. Instead, I'm just going to summarize:

Exercise is good (and necessary), but it probably isn't enough, on its own, for losing weight.

This tracks with my own experience, but of course my own experience is a data point of one and when it comes to fitness, I always find out later I've been lying to myself. So I don't trust my own experience, either.

Still, it was true for me that diet alone, without additional exercise (that is, more than what it takes to walk from the couch to the bathroom and back again a few times a day) doesn't work. It requires both.

So what's the point of exercise? I ask myself that every time I get on the elliptical trainer, and I have to remind myself that it makes me feel less dumb and helps fend off depression. That alone is usually reason enough to keep going; any weight loss benefits are icing on the donut. Mmmmm... donut... *drool*

Ahem. Anyway. That works for me until it doesn't, and then I get back into the funk of "I'm depressed." "I should exercise." "I don't feel like it." "But it'll make you feel better." "I don't want to feel better." "But I hate being like this." "So? Shut up and have another bottle of tequila."

Yes, I talk to myself like that when I'm depressed. Does it help? No.

This article, to get back to the point, still doesn't address the question I had yesterday: So what happens if I reach my goal weight?

I mean, this can't be a fully linear process, can it? Like, say you're losing a pound a week. Just as an example. Somehow, you manage to do this regularly and consistently. But there's got to be a limit, right? Else you waste away to nothing (which, now I think of it, would make an excellent story- shit, Stephen King already did it). You keep eating less and less and exercising more and more, in order to keep that pound-a-week thing going, and at some point, it turns into the Red Queen's Race - it takes all your energy just to stand still.

That's what worries me, if I'm being honest. That there's no end to this self-deprivation; that I'm consigned to a lifetime of gray purgatory. They say success requires a lifestyle change, and while I'm perfectly okay with some lifestyle changes, especially if I know that I can relax at some point... some things just aren't worth the rewards.

It's frustrating, really.