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Massage Time: Calories, Calories, Calories...

After five months of eating everything in sight, I've decided it's time to get back on the wagon. Again. I know, I know. I've done this before. In my defense, my entire dieting regiment was thrown off kilter in May when I was dealing with an excruciatingly painful canker sore on the roof of my mouth. By the time it healed, I would have raised Terry Pratchett from the dead and punched him in his awesome face if it meant I could eat anything that wasn't of a cold mashed potato consistency. I love me some Terry Pratchett, but I love food more.

Nothing personal, dude.

So I'm back to calorie counting and exercising. I've even added swimming to my workout routine. It's a good calorie burner, even though I need a freaking life belt to keep afloat. You would think with all the junk I have in my trunk I wouldn't need a floatation device. I asked Neesa Johnson, a colleague of mine, her opinion on the matter, and she suggested to me that I might have high bone density which causes people to sink like a stone when trying to swim. This makes me feel vindicated after years of telling people I'm not fat, just big boned.

Told you, bitches!

"Hold on a minute there, Ke-mo Sah-bee!" I hear y'all saying. But really I don't because this is the internet and I'm not psychic. "What does any of this have to do with massage? You're not trying to get out of writing yet another blog post are you?"

"Why would I try to get out of writing a blog post by writing another blog post?" Is what I would say if, in fact, I did hear y'all talking trash. "This thing is WAY too long to be a lazy post. And who the hell still says Ke-mo Sah-bee? Am I even spelling that shit right?"

I would totally say that. Super totes.

But to answer your question, I asked Ms. Johnson if I should include massage as a calorie burning exercise, and if so, how many calories does it burn, anyway? I looked it up and was surprised to find a 160 pound female burns approximately 289 calories doing an hour's worth of massage. That seemed a bit high since I don't feel as if I'm exerting myself quite that much. I calculated for my weight and came up with 273 calories which still seems high. I can sometimes do five or six massages in a day, so why am I not a twig?

Well, for one, I only recently started watching what I eat, so my calorie intake has been higher than my calorie burning expenditure regardless of how much I work. And two, I do massage five days a week. My body has adapted itself to except massage as a normal activity. It's the same reason personal trainers tell you not to do the same workout over and over, Neesa said. Your body retains its fat because it adapts to repeated routines. And because it hates you.

So after all this research, I've decided to count a fraction of those calories burned, but only if I've had an extremely hard workday, like if I get a lot of deep tissue work and expend more than usual. I'm hoping at the very least to earn myself enough calories to drink a beer.

Hard apple cider. Because I'm a drunk with distinguished tastes. And because real beer tastes...beery?

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