Hot enough for ya?

Its hot.

Damn hot.

And humid. Actually, humid isn't a strong enough word – it's just plain wet. You know what your bathroom feels like after a long, hot shower, when you can't see anything through the thick fog hanging in the air? That's what it feels like when I walk out my front door.

Then the wind starts whipping around and it feels like I live in a convection oven.

Its so oppressive it's actually sapping my will to live – and my desire to even think about exercising. All I want to do is turn on every fan in my house, turn the AC down to "meat locker" and curl up in the fetal position in a bathtub full of ice until November.

Not surprisingly, my outdoor workouts are suffering in both frequency and intensity. Which has led me to wonder two things:

1) Does working out in the heat burn more calories than in cooler temperatures?

and

2) At what point is it "too dangerous" to vigorously exercise outdoors

To find answers I tracked down an old Q&A with Mr. Cardio himself, Dr. Kenneth Cooper, who just so happens to live in the same stifling soup I do.

As for question #1: Yes, working out in extreme heat requires an additional expenditure of energy. I figured as much, since doing the same workout today feels much harder to trudge through than it did a few months ago.

Exposure to extreme heat accelerates your heart rate. Obviously, so does exercising. This creates a "synergistic" effect, or as Dr. Cooper explains, "one plus one equals three." So compared to working out in January, I'm burning more calories in the same amount of time in July. However, I'm also placing more of a strain on the ticker.

Which leads to question #2: At what point does that strain become dangerous? Well, obviously if you're 97 years old with a history of heart disease, going for a 15 mile run at 3pm in August in Texas might not be the best of ideas. But what about for a relatively healthy fat man in his mid-thirties?

Dr. Cooper claims that acclimatization is the key. If you begin to sweat soon after starting exercising (or in my case, soon after you start thinking about exercising), your body is well acclimated to the heat. Actually, the sooner you start to sweat, the less likely you are to suffer a heat related illness. So I can safely say I'm well-acclimated, but that doesn't mean there's no risk at all.

When Dr. Cooper was in charge of Air Force training in San Antonio, several recruits from the north died in the heat. He started a monitoring program and found rectal temperatures of those not acclimated reached as high as 106 degrees after just a two mile run (remind me never to participate in a heat exercise study). He then developed a system based on the heat and humidity to gauge the risk of heat related illnesses.

His basic guideline is this: if the combination of temperature and humidity exceeds 150, you should avoid vigorous exercise outdoors.

Living in a part of the country where the four seasons are Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer, and Christmas, this information is a little unsettling. For instance, at 8am this morning the temperature was 83 degrees and the humidity was 68%. That's already over the limit!?!

And although I'd like to to use this information to justify shelving my workouts for the next couple of months, the last thing I want to do is break this habit. So... along with making sure I'm drinking a ridiculous amount of water, I've made a few modifications to my routine: 1) I'm going later in the day - around 5:30 instead of 3:30. While its not any cooler temperature wise, the sun is much less intense and there's a lot more shade on the trail. 2) I've made my route a little shorter. I've cut a mile off my bike ride and about a half mile from my walk/jog. And 3) I'm easing up on the intensity. Walking more than jogging and dropping a gear or two on the bike. Maybe that washes out any additional heat calories I'm burning, but at this point of the year, my main goal is just to stay alive until the blessed cool winds of Christmas blow into town.

The Potted Plant Theory

Being over six feet tall in the sixth grade, I never had much luck finding age-appropriate clothing that fit me. While my friends ran around in Coca-Cola shirts, OP and JAMS, I was sporting a pinpoint button down from the Dillard's mens department. This had an obvious impact on my effectiveness with the ladies and added to what was already a considerable "awkward" stage of life. Imagine a kid dressed like a junior associate in a law firm who's too tall to play with his friends in the "ball pit" of Chuck E Cheese.

One of the few things that actually kept my weight in check in the past was the social pressures of "appropriate" clothing. I'm not talking high fashion here, but just simply being able to wear something that's currently "in-style." For instance, tight-fitting, one size too small shirts and flat front pants are a trend that's especially unfortunate for the fat man. I can only imagine how much worse this is for a female.

Sizes at most popular stores like Banana Republic and The Gap top out at a rare 2XL and they certainly don't take the freakishly tall into consideration. After that, the options get pretty slim (no pun intended). There's the Big & Tall clearance section at Steinmart or, God forbid, The Casual Male – which would be been fine if I lived on the Jersey shore and all my friends also wore oversized velour track suits.

In all honesty, if society didn't have any influence over me, I'd shuffle around in a Homer Simpson-esque muu muu house dress. But having to leave the house and go to work and see other humans out and about always provided just enough motivation to keep my weight somewhat in check.

But then I started working at home.

With no one to impress and no reason to leave the house, I'd roll out of bed and work all day in a t-shirt and boxers. Not surprisingly, my weight started to balloon. So much so that my biggest clothes started to grow tight. In search of more suitable attire, I stumbled upon the mecca of big man shopping in Dallas. Where many of the area's professional athletes shop, Rochester's is a store with very nice men's clothing that starts at XL and XLT's.

I was estatic! My rotund mid-section had been liberated, no longer bound and shackled by the restrictive confines of a 2XL shirt! I stocked up on 3XLT's and celebrated that for once in my life, I was able to wear "big" clothes that didn't come off a clearance rack. But then an interesting thing happened. It didn't take long before my new clothes started to feel a little tight. Did they get put in the drier? Did the dry cleaners mess them up? My bathroom scale revealed the true culprit – I'd gained weight. A lot of it.

This incident shocked me into dropping a few pounds until slowly the weight crept back up. And when my clothes got tight again, I just went back to the store and bought 4XLT's. Comfortable again, I didn't worry about my weight. But it wasn't long before I started filling them up as well. It was then that I recognized the transformative power of clothing, or what I like to call, The Potted Plant Theory.

Many plants will grow to the size of the pot they're planted in. Plant a bush in a small pot and it will grow to the size of a football. Put it in a large pot, and the same bush will grow two, three, even four times as big. If it's got the room to expand, it will.

It's my belief that this same thing happens with fat people and clothes.

Fatties are all about feeling comfortable in clothing. And when something is too tight or too short or just not fitting right, it can have a seriously negative impact on our state of mind. Our natural inclination is to cover what we're ashamed of with loose fitting clothes (most of us are painfully unaware that this makes us look even larger). What I learned the hard way was that the more comfortable I was in my clothes, the more weight I gained. Simply put, I was just growing into my pot.

So as I lose a few pounds, I've found myself moving down the rack of my closet to some of the clothes that I haven't been able to squeeze into in years. If I put on that shirt that's just a little too snug or the pants that I have to take a deep breath to get on, I find that it makes me feel fat. And since I do not particularly like to feel fat, it provides a little extra motivation to stick with the Rehab Diet.

Weigh In - 6/4

Its been a while since an "official" weigh in. Over the last month or so I've kept on the Rehab Diet, but with varying levels of intensity. Not surprisingly, my weight has fluctuated up and down (within about a 5 lb range). Overall, a little weight still came off over that time - which motivated me to refocus over the next four weeks before a vacation.

Today's weight: 274

Most encouragingly, I've now lost 30 lbs and reached the 10% threshold. A few significant changes I've noticed over the last three months:

• My wrist watch fits like a bracelet and my wedding ring no longer cuts off the circulation to my ring finger.
• I can wrap and cinch a standard bath towel around myself now. No more beach towels to take a shower.
• I can blow dry my daughter's hair (a hot, humid, half-hour ordeal) without looking like I've run a marathon.
• Overall, I don't sweat nearly as much as I used too. Despite what Matthew Mcconaughey thinks, I consider this a positive development.
• I'm down to the last hole in all my belts.
  
• I'm down almost 2XL's. 4XL looks like a pup tent on me now, 3XL is nice and roomy, and I'm actually squeezing into 2XL's.
  

Actually, I went "shopping" in my own closet last week looking for old clothes that I can fit in now. This got me thinking about the subject of my next post – something I call the Potted Plant Theory.

Stay tuned...

The Katy Trail

I thought it might be fun to create a "pictorial essay" of my daily trip on the Katy Trail (mostly because I didn't have the time to write anything this week). If you're feeling especially generous, visit the Friends of the Katy Trail site and donate some money for lighting. It might save me someday from getting rolled by a gang of hoodlums for my skips and my iPhone. Speaking of, I apologize for the picture quality - or lack thereof. The iPhone is many wonderful things - unfortunately, a quality camera is not one of them.

















Hazy, hot and humid. Another beautiful day for a ride...
















Knox Henderson Intersection - Try not to get hit by Mercedes SUV driving Park Cities soccer mom blabbing on her pink Blackberry and slurping a Mocha Grande Latte.

















Nice shade - perfect for those of us who are pigment challenged.

















No problem here, but somebody should chase down that dude on the unicycle that just blew past me.

















Further down the trail old railway bridges overpass the roads.

















Reverchon Park Overlook - Where I got engaged and was almost arrested for unknowingly soliciting gay sex (not on the same day).

















American Airlines Center - End of the line

















On the way back - up the hill this time...

















Knox Henderson - Again.

















I'd like to find the sadistic, skinny SOB who thought this was a cute idea and kick him square in the cherries.
















A special kind of torture. Almost home...

















With pleasure!

Back With A Bang

First of all, let me apologize to the faithful readers of You Have To Eat... (all three or four of you). I had a crazy month and have been on a bit of a roller coaster lately adding and losing weight. What I'm learning is that weight loss is as much about the management of time as anything else (more on that to come later).

That out of the way, I thought I'd recount a recent experience that underscores that a healthier lifestyle isn't just manifested in pounds lost. Allow me to explain...

I took my three year old daughter on a field trip with her school last week. On our way home I asked if she wanted to go to lunch, and being three years old, she spent a few minutes mulling the pros and cons of Chuck E Cheese, Chick Fil-A and McDonald's. She finally decided on McyD's and demanded that we "dine-in" so that she could spend some quality time on the playground.

Having not eaten at a fast food joint in over 3 months (although I did stop and get a turkey sandwich at an Arby's a while back), I figured Chick Fil-A would be my best option. But when I tried to steer her in that direction, I was told chicken nuggets were "nasty." So we ended up at McDonald's where she proceeded to order... you guessed it, chicken nuggets. Then came my moment of truth. Was I going to try to maintain some level of healthiness - grilled chicken sandwich or salad - or just throw caution to the wind and strap on a good old fashioned #1 combo meal? Like a moth flying directly to a flame, I never had a chance.

So we sat down to enjoy our meal. Her with a box of chicken nuggets, small fries and apple "dippers," me with a Big Mac, large fry and barrel of Sprite. Besides the fact that I somehow located the only McDonald's in the English speaking world that does not have a playground, our meal together was pleasant.

I must admit, before starting the Rehab Diet, I judged the merit of a McDonald's on the saltiness of their fries. Nothing got my fat blood boiling like pulling away from the drive-thru only to realize the "Fry Guy" was chinzy with the salt. Now maybe it's because I don't eat them two to three times a day anymore or maybe this Fry Guy needs to go back to McUniversity, but these fries tasted like they'd been deep-fried in salt, dredged in a bed of sea salt then doused with numerous shakes of an industrial-sized salt shaker. They were almost inedible. The key word being "almost."

So I'm choking down the burger and salt sticks when I get an uncomfortable pang in my stomach. You know, the one that lets you know this isn't going to end well? I fought through it, though, and was just about finished when my bowels cramped up - letting me know that not only was this not going to end well, it was going to end soon. Very soon.

At this point I should let you in on the dining habits of my youngest daughter. She might possibly be the absolute slowest eater on the face of the planet. I can down a chicken nugget without chewing. I suspect the average human eats one in two bites. Granted she's three, but this child takes five or six bites around the nugget before even thinking about getting started on what's left. She eats each fry, one by one. Every tiny bite of apple is pain-stakingly dipped in caramel. All of this as she repeatedly turns in her seat to wave to the homeless guy dining behind us or the table of day laborers in front of us.

At this point, I'm considering asking either one if they mind keeping an eye on her while I sprint to the restroom. Instead, when she turns away, I start eating her food. Not surprisingly, this does not help the civil war raging in my bowels and elicits screams of disapproval from my daughter. Finally, I can take no more. I scoop up what's left of her lunch, throw her over my shoulder and make a run for the car. Strapped in her car seat and covered in McDonald's food, she is perfectly content as we squeal out of the parking lot and race home.

Thanks to a Mario Andretti-like display of driving, I made it (just barely) and the ensuing assault on my toilet was swift and unforgiving. I'll spare you any further detail, but suffice it to say, I don't think I'll be eating fast food again anytime soon.