I was going to school in the midwest, and had gone through that wonderful metabolism shift that occurs in your twenties. You know the freshman fifteen (followed by the sophmoore groan). Whatever you want to call it, it amounts to bigger love handles and a bit more padding for your bar stool.
I hated it. and believed, perhaps foolishly, that exercise was the answer. For those of you out there who don't know this, muscle weighs more than fat. So, exercising to lose weight is somewhat counterproductive to say the least. Without getting into specifics, it does help, but there is a limit to what exercise (alone) can do.
Anyway, everything but my wallet was gaining weight, but I had the answer. The college athletic department was doing a multi-year weight loss study.
It seemed simple enough. They were looking for participants who were willing to start a regimented exercise routine. The participants diet would be periodically monitored and they would be given a full metabolism breakout. To top it all off, they would pay us and pay for our food four weeks a semester.
Are you waiting for the other shoe to fall? Well, this is me, so you know it is going to. Otherwise this story would never be written. I signed up, got my money, agreed to participate in all of their lab rat tests, and got stuck in the control group.
Yep, you heard me. The control group. That meant I still had to go through all the tests, and had my diet monitored (which consisted of them weighing and writing down everything we ate during those four weeks a semester) and I still got my money, but I wasn't allowed to start a new exercise routine for the duration of the study. In otherwords, I was being paid to remain a fat couch potatoe.
Fine. It was easy money, and it wasn't forever, and they told me that I could use the gym after it was over for free for the same duration. It seemed reasonable.
My first task, as a couch potatoe participant, was to have my resting metabolism measured. I had been out gaming (The Journal of Granar is based on the gaming done with that group) and got home about midnight. My answering machine light was blinking.
This is such-n-such from the exercise and physiology study. We need you to come in the morning and have your RMR measured. Please be here at 6:30 AM. This was getting worse.
I managed to kick myself, but not too hard I wasnt supposed to be exercising beyond what I got at work, and somehow managed to drag myself to the clinic at 6:30.
Yawning. I get there, and they put a plastic bag (connected to a device to measure my breath gasses) over my head and told me to lay still on this cold doctor's table. They told me to: "Lay still. Don't go to sleep. I'll see you in an hour." They then flipped off the light and left.
Now, I was tired, and I had to not go to sleep. So, I meditated. I had spent several years in asia, and had gone through martial arts training (a tale for another time). I figured meditation would keep me conscious.
Whoops.
There was one little problem. I forgot that meditation lowers your heart rate, your breathing, and yes, your metabolism.
Whoops
My numbers were all screwed up. This became clear when they were preparing us for the chamber.
As a follow on to the bag over head test. They planned to lock us up for 24 hours in an air tight box. It was a nice box. It had TV and a toilet and an exercise bike and a desk, but it was still a box. A box in another state. We had to fly to get there. Ok, no harm, no foul.
Prior to our incarceration, they had to know exactly what we had the prior 72 hours to eat. This meant that they planned and gave us everything we could eat in that time frame.
They planned it according to our RMR numbers.
The ones that were obtained, while I was meditating.
I knew something was wrong when I walked into the cafeteria and the woman dug out my sheet. She looked at it. She looked at me. She looked at it. She went um... You need to go get your tray. I don't remember exactly what she gave me to eat for that 72 hours. What I do remember is her cutting the hamburger into fourths. I got one fourth and a little bit more. She said "I'm sorry thats all your allowed to eat." Here is the rest of your food for the next 72 hours. I ate it on the way home, as I wondered if I was in the weight loss group after all. Now "The Chamber" where they would learn all the secrets of our fat genes was in another state. Being incredibly smart and gifted and frugal they had booked our flights months in advance. I had the luck to fly out on the day that the airline declared bankruptcy. Yes, to the day. Now the trip out was pretty uneventful, of course I was delerious with hunger, but I remember going to the counter, grunting, and getting my ticket without incident. I flew out. Was thankful to be locked up cuz there was food and spent the next day walking around in a box on a scale. Upon my release, they took me back to the airport and dropped me off without so much as a thanks for coming. I went in and the counter went that airline doesnt exist. Great. I was now stuck in another state. Well, the sent me back and forth between counters for a bit and then one of the counters got sick of me and sent me to the bowels of the Denver airport. The Denver airport is really a small city. There are freaking birds in the place and it has its own subway. I was sent to the farthest most terminal. Terminal C. In terminal C, I was sent to the farthest most gate. It was down past the real airplanes, past the vegas rent me please gates, past Hooter's airline, past where Fred Flinstone's pedal job parks. It was the last post and last hope of the Denver airport. The gate attendant was cute enough. Good thing as I had eight hours to wait. Unfortunately, she started sniffling and then crying and then balling. She had lost her job and it was her last day. She kept saying things like how am I going to pay the rent and then those bastards all between her perky smile greeting customers. That would have been bad enough for eight hours or whatever it was, but the mechanics were outside playing catch with varioius engine parts and making jokes about what planes really needed to fly. Well, eventually I made it home (without anything falling off), but when I got there, my ride had gone home. He had abandoned me. My airline went out of business after all, so I was stuck in the airport until they could send for me. That is the end of the chamber part of the story, but not the end of the study story. I had one more physical still to do. It was several months later. By then, they were used to me, but not all of the staff knew to watch what they said to me. On the occasion of the physical they stuck me on a tread mill and stuck another bag over my head. My task was simple. I was to walk for as long as possible. Every few minutes, they either increased the elevation or increased the speed. Of course you had two wanna be physical therapist types there egging you on to go to your limits. In my case, that was a mistake. As I got tired and bored, my mind switched over from conscious focused why am I doing this to the dream like state of boredom which is on the edge of the unconscious. We have all been there. You know that state you get in when you drive a long time and suddenly forget you are driving. Time and miles just pass. In my case, minutes passed. The psycho twins were egging me on. I was slipping into that semi aware state. When the sparkles which mean stop or you will be hitting the floor soon happened, I listened and stopped. My trainers asked why I stopped and I said, or grunted, cuz I felt like I was going to pass out. One of them tried to find my pulse in my arm, but since I had unconsciously shifted blood flow to my legs, she had a tough time measuring my pulse. She freaked. She thought I was having a heart attack. She ran and got the doctor who took one look at me and said oh its you what did you do now? I said lost weight.
