Random Thought #7: I Am So Out Of Shape

In the summertime I like to swim. I usually swim a half-mile a day, once I've worked up to it. I have been patiently waiting for the pool to open in my apartment complex. Usually it's been open for awhile by this time, but this year it needs some work done. For some reason they have had an incredibly difficult time getting someone to come and do it. So I decided to go to one of the public pools during their adult lap swim.

Boy, that public pool is long. That combined with the fact that I haven't swum in awhile made me feel like I might drown halfway through a lap.

The thing about the pool at my apartment complex is that it's good for one's self-esteem. It's not a very big pool, so I can do many laps without expending too much effort. I know that in a pool 25 yards long, 35 laps is a half-mile. I know that it takes me about 35 minutes to do 35 laps in such a pool. I can do about 63 laps in 35 minutes in my apartment complex pool, which sounds quite impressive.

It took me 20 minutes to do 12 laps in the public pool.

This is quite embarrassing, so I decided to deal with that by writing about it on the internet. In fairness, I'm not sure how long the public pool is. It's really, really, long though, honest!

I don't have any books on swimming specifically, but one of my favorite books on health in general is Eat, Drink, and be Merry by Dean Edell, MD (1999). It's about how Americans are in the best health and have the longest life spans in history, yet we worry more about our health than ever before. He wrote the book to try to quell some of our health-related anxieties. He discusses the media bias toward scare stories and how that makes us think that things are worse than they are regarding health threats. He says that perfect nutrition may not exist and in general, rather than "dieting," eat what you want, just eat less of it, vary your diet as much as possible, and add some vegetables. He also discussed some of the myths regarding exercise and notes that you can accrue most of the health benefits by only doing a moderate amount. (He also points out that playing an instrument burns 160 calories an hour and typing burns 120 calories an hour). Both of these facts are good news to me, since I've been playing my flute lately, practicing for my brother's wedding, and I type a lot. Anyway, there is a lot of other information in this book, and it's all really interesting and highly readable.