Burning Calories?

I wasn't going to post this morning, but something just happened that is almost unbelievable.  (No, I didn't get the house cleaned before Thanksgiving, THAT would be unbelievable.)

For the last two years you may remember I've been trying to keep fit by walking with Ms. Leslie Sansone, no news there, and also attending the senior exercise class at our church twice a week.  I went to the early class this morning which is unusual for me, but necessary, since we won't have class on Thanksgiving Day. We had a very vigorous three mile workout at class this morning and I was really sweating after it was over.

After class, I took my friend Mary to the grocery store.  Mary is an amazing lady, 69 years old and a very avid walker.  She already had seven miles on her pedometer by nine thirty this morning.  She doesn't own a car, so whenever I'm in town we go to the grocery store together so she doesn't have to carry her purchases home.   Mary said she'd see me on Monday, and I said yeah, we were going to really need exercise class by then, after eating all weekend.  We'd have to burn some more calories for sure. 

When I got home from exercise class I jumped on the freight scale in the garage to see how my weight loss progress is going.  Nothing much new to report there either, I'm holding steady on the maintenance of the forty pounds I've lost so far.   Another forty pounds lost would be ideal, but it sure seems far off.  Maybe once this thyroid gets straightened out I'll be able to lose some more.   Especially if I get back into my formal weight lifting again.  I've got a perfectly good weight machine upstairs sitting there all neglected since I quit lifting when the thyroid went bonkers.  I'm going to have to ease back into that routine.

I went in the house with the groceries I figure I'll need for Thanksgiving and stowed them away.  We're having Thanksgiving on Friday with our family and I should be getting things ready, but hey, you know me, Procrastinator Extraordinaire.  I was still tired from exercise class, so I grabbed a glass of water and headed for my chair in the living room and turned on my laptop.  The sun was shining brightly through the big bay window and it felt good to take a load off for awhile. 

 I frequent weight loss and fitness forums quite a bit and found a different online calculator for estimating body fat percentages through several key measurements.  I hoisted my behind out of my Lazy Boy and went in search of the tape measure in the bathroom.  After much scrounging around, I finally found it under a magnifying mirror in the drawer.  For some odd reason, I brought the mirror along with me back to the living room; I don't know why, chalk it up to my absentmindedness.  I set the mirror down on the floor and went to work measuring my various body dimensions and entering the results on the calculator.

Waist, thigh, hip, wrist, forearm, and calf measurements were required and I was busily entering all the data when I felt something bite me on my left leg just above the ankle.  Since this is November, it's not really bug season any more, so I was baffled, but Ouch! it hurt.  I swatted my leg and rubbed it a little, but kept my eye on the computer screen as I had just hit enter and was waiting for the website to tell me what my body fat percentage was. 

Finally the number popped up.  Really?  Still 27.5% body fat?  Oh, drat.  Gosh, I was steamed.

And that's when I smelled something burning.  I looked away from the computer screen and was stunned to see smoke rising from my workout pants....What the heck?  Am I on fire?

Yes, I was.

It turns out I had put the magnifying mirror down on the floor and the sunlight coming in through the living room window reflected onto my workout pants and boy howdy, I was smokin'.    I swatted my pants some more, putting out the fire, and quickly turned the mirror out of the sunlight. Actually, it's a good thing I did have to wait for the website to load, because otherwise I might have left the living room and set the chair on fire instead. My polyester workout pants now have a dime-sized hole in the leg.  Extra ventilation, I guess.

Even though it's taken me an hour to write this post, I'm still stunned by the ease at which I spontaneously combusted.

Leslie always says we're burning lots and lots of calories even after we're done working out.  I will never, ever question that statement again. 

She is absolutely right.


Happy Thanksgiving to all!