Exercise Workout? I propose the Mango Per Mile Measurement.

The funniest thing about this revelation is that I am really looking forward to Mango Season ending.

Yes, I am a bit over the moon about the fruit but in two months they are just everywhere. 

Last night a person walked onto my porch and left me a bag of six "museum quality" mangoes.  Perfectly ripe, perfectly fragrant, perfectly tasty Mangoes.

I should know, I had one for breakfast today.

And that's the weird thing.  You see I measure my exercise and the calorie burn.  I mean obsessively.  I have since I got into athletic training and "fixing" my self after accidents and childhood.

It was to the point where Humana Healthcare stopped recording my workouts yesterday on their go365 program.  Oh sure it starts again today but it is an amusing brag to say that I had a health insurance company tell me I workout too much!

Got skates?  Join me at the park!  Woo!  15.2 MPH on Skates is Fun!

So the long story is that through the health insurance plan that we have, if I consent to have them watch what I do, they throw a nickel to a dime at me at the end.  By their measure, I have five workouts per day.  Three dog walks, a step count, and yesterday I skated.

I think my "audit" of their "audit" of my activity is a bit off but you get the picture.

I use Strava to record our walks around town, and Runkeeper to record my inline skate workouts.  Both of those programs will report my calorie burn, and I burn a LOT of calories.  Runkeeper does not measure inline skate calories accurately, Strava is perfect on dog walks.

In fact, I have been tested at 140 calories per mile.  So for 14 miles, that's (math) 1960 calories per workout, plus change for rests and water stops.  Call it 2200 calories.   More if I have a great day and extend it, and I have.  It also varies due to conditions of my own gear and weather.  You get the picture, right?

It works out to a skate workout being 130 ounces of Mango.

14 miles is about 1/2 of what I used to do each time, and doing that gave me 100 miles a week across the training regimen.  Wake, walk, lift, work, walk, skate, sleep.   Kind of repetitive.

I have to fuel up between so basically I'm constantly eating.  Carbo Load!  Time to nibble!  Get Out Of Jail Free Card for the second piece of chocolate cake!

Mentally I am keeping a calorie count, an approximation actually, as I go through the day.

When the house wakes up, we go for a dog walk, and this being mango season, there are these monster trees dropping one pound plus fruit.  I see one and the reaction is always the same... "OOO! I Shall Call You Breakfast!".

I get home and turn off Strava and check the calories burned, yes, one dog walk is approximately 10 ounces of Mango at 17 calories per ounce of chunks.

Add a little yogurt for protein, some banana, honey, cinnamon, and make a smoothie.

Two to three weeks a year the calories I take in are the equivalent of the mangoes that I collect on my dog walks. 

Lets see... a mile dog walk is 170 calories, 10 ounces...

Well thankfully I can go back to a normal breakfast soon.   We went to the big market over the weekend and there is some wonderful "Seafood Spread" waiting to be married to some bagels that are in the freezer.  Add tomato and onion, and you get the picture!

All these nickels and dimes add up.  We are using it constructively.  In order to perform all this OCD measurement silliness, I have to have the right equipment.  A Bluetooth chest strap to monitor heart rate is needed for my skate workouts.   I limit my speed to a specific 175 BPM heart rate peak, and to go slower than 155 BPM Is boring.  The strap talks to the phone.  The phone talks to Runkeeper and I have a voice in my head telling me that "You're Doing Great, Champ" or "It's All You" or other things that I have told people that I train or train with.  Every minute or so, his voice comes on the headphones and tells me my stats, and most importantly the HR at the end.

I get back to the Jeep, sit on the bumper, get out of all of my gear and tell Mr Announcer that I'm done.  He gives me a "Hmmm, What are we gonna do, go for a sandwich?" and I'm done.  Post workout reward is four butter "sewing kit" cookies that taste like heaven after all that.

All at about a mango a mile.

Weird.