Neurotic Much?!?

So, my roommate is AMAZING! She's game for anything... one of the many reasons I adore her. The latest thing I talked her into was doing the Fat Smash Diet with me. It's crazy, you have to be a vegetarian (but only for 9 days) and then there are other phases. Luckily, today is day 10, chicken and diet coke never tasted so good.

I got talked into to doing this crazy diet by my friend J. Flo's wife, Veronica. She told me not to buy the book because there wasn't really much we needed to know. But, I think she got sick of me calling Joe a supernumerary amount of times daily to ask him very important questions, such as "how much ketchup can I have?"

So, today Joe brought in the book and told me to copy what I wanted out of it. Basically, I just read it all, not that I didn't have enough to do at work or anything. And, I came across this section that cracked me up. It was a whole list of activities that burn calories. None of these are exaggerations, all ACTUALLY appeared in the book as an activity. The book give calories per minute for exercising, listing a whole myriad of activities including, (I am not kidding): sleeping 1.2 cals/min. as opposed to 1.3 for resting in bed (is there a difference??? - REALLY), standing 1.5 cals/min., conversing 1.8 cals/min. (So apparently THAT is why my metabolism is higher than most... who knew???), washing and dressing 2.6 cals/min., making the bed 3.4 (that's where I lose a few.), showering 3.4 (how is this different than washing? - Is it because of the hybrid of activities standing + washing = showering 3.4???)

Now we get to the fun part. cleaning windows 3.7 cals/min., farming chores 3.8 cals/min. (whatever, the farmers don't care about looking svelt, they wear coveralls for the love of everything good and holy, coveralls hide a multitude of sins, I wonder if I could find a farmer whose willing to do transference of calories with me??? Would that work??? It's about as logical as Carbon offsets if you ask me...), ironing clothes 4.2 cals/min. (we really do need to get our iron fixed Diz.), stacking lumber 5.8, working with a pick and/or shovel 6.7, shoveling snow 7.1, chopping wood 7.5, tree felling 8.4 - 12.7 (I have NO earthly idea what this even is, but I might take it up, just to burn the calories!), walking up stairs 10 - 18 cals/min (Good thing Joe keeps ignoring me when I say "You own a construction firm, when are you going to construct me an elevator???")

Real sports (ummm, I am going to have to refute the first couple of these "sports"): playing billiards 1.8 cals/min (sports??? - really, can you claim athletic prowess if you're a wicking pool player???), pitching horseshoes (sport, I think not) 3.8, ping-pong (sport? hmmm...) 4.9 unless you're Japanese then it's 7.0 because you do it with gusto, golfing in a 4-some 3.7 BUT if you do it in a 2-some it's 5.0 (see, pairing off is better - ha ha ha), archery (sport?) 5.0, bowling 7.0 (too bad it takes less than a minute to bowl and then your back down to the sitting/standing value) slide board 9.0 - 13.0 (once again, what is this???), square dancing (sport?) 7.7, tennis 7.0 - 11 (depending on how good you are, somehow I think I at about a 2 cals/min. range, which as you can see is only slightly higher than the expenditure of calories for standing upright), skipping rope 10.0 - 15.0 (hey hey what do you know???), wrestling 14.0! Who wants wrestle with me???, swimming 6.0 - 12.5 depending on the stroke, walking 5.6 - 7.0, walking in the snow, uphill and barefoot like our parents had to do 10 - 20 (Ok, I am kidding about the uphill and barefoot part, but really the chart has "walking in the snow as a category) ... but the real money-maker is running. 12 min./mile = 10 cals/min., 8 min./mile = 15, 6 min./mile = 20, and 5 min./mile = 25! No wonder those Kenyans are SO ridiculously skinny!

Basically I learned three really important things from this research:
1. - In order to not have to go on these crazy ridiculous diets ever again I would have to resort to moving to Kenya (OK, we all know that wouldn't work - or moving like a Kenyan), or doing a lot more wrestling. And, if all else fails, tree felling still packs a punch.
2. The word "sport" is a REALLY broad term.
3. You would have to be one neurotic person to actually figure out exactly how many more (or less –some days) calories you intake and expend. Somebody buy me a stop watch!