Saturday 9 June 2007

Pic of the day: I thoughtfully took this picture during a walk this spring. (Which is to say that I thoughtlessly didn't take one today.)

Walk with Pepsi

While May was quite a chilly month, June almost immediately changed to hot hot hot. Well, by Norwegian standards, but our standards have grown hotter too over the last years. You could easily think you were in Spain, except the days don't last till 10 PM in Spain.

One of the things I enjoyed the most in May was walking, from half an hour to an hour, in the pleasant weather. I have hesitated to do this now, although of course I still walk to the bus, but that's not even ten minutes each way. So today I ventured outdoors again, into the heat. With a pulse clock again I could get also more exact statistics on what happened to my poor body.

I walked a route that I have used quite a few times already. The differences were that it was now unpleasantly hot, and that I bought a bottle (half a liter) of Pepsi in a shop less than ten minutes from home. Apart from liking Pepsi, there was also some scientific curiosity involved. If my legs grow tired because the blood sugar falls too low, I should be less tired when I came home this time, since the Pepsi would add sugar pretty quickly. (I generally avoid the sugar replacements, though it has happened that I have used them. They are super popular here in Norway though, for some reason. Pepsi Max is a bestseller.)

Well, so much for the blood sugar theory. I came home feeling at least as tired as usual, despite having drained the whole bottle gradually over the 50 minutes walk. Now, "tired" in this case does not mean that my knees feel weak etc, just a discomfort that encourages rest. Which I did. My pulse still used ten more minutes to get down to resting levels, but that's fine by me. There is 235 kcal in half a liter of Pepsi, while I burned 500 during the walk and 100 more during the ten minutes of cooling down aftewards.

Anyway, blood sugar evidently does not stop me from walking, other things would stop me first. This is entirely as expected. As a child, I would skip meals without noticing, and I still don't get weak or dizzy from lack of meals for a day. It is just my stomach who gnaws and eventually starts hurting if I don't feed it.

Water, then? The jury is still out, because the heat may have caused me to evaporate more than the 5 dl I drank. The only way to control it now would be to walk the same route without drinking anything, and I am not sure that would be good for my health. Perhaps if I bring a bottle of water and douse my hair instead... but people walking is already a strange enough sight even here in Norway, since everyone can afford a car. Probably even I, if I stop buying new computers once or twice a year, and start drinking water instead of Pepsi when walking. But neither of these is very likely to happen anytime soon. Besides, I don't need a car every year. And I like walking with Pepsi better.