I have spent the day in a good deal of physical and mental discomfort thanks to my shrinking pants. Seriously it was all that I could think about all afternoon. When I got home I weighed myself again. 222 lbs. Exactly the same weight that I've been for the last two months. I even took a body fat measurement. I won't reveal the actual figure, but it was, to my surprise, statistically insignificant from the last measurement that I took. What could be going on here?
Just a moment ago, I was in my basement doing crunches in between sets of squats when a thought occurred to me. Not just a thought, but a new hypothesis. What I thought of was my hip flexors. I thought of them because these are muscles that normally get used while doing sit-ups, but do not get used when you do crunches... at least not if you do them properly. Hip flexors also get used a good deal while snowshoeing.
Actually your hip flexors get used all the time while walking. They are the muscles that help raise the trunk of your leg toward your torso. Snowshoeing, however, puts much more strain on these muscles for two reasons. First, because of the depth of the snow you must take more pronounced steps and raise your leg up further with each step to get above the snow. Second, the additional weight of the snowshoes as well as all of the snow that gets stuck on top of them adds quite a bit of resistance to the motion.
It then occurred to me that the first day that I remember my pants being uncomfortably tight was last week; the day after I went snowshoeing for the first time this season. I know that I stressed my hip flexors because towards the end of the hike my hips were so sore that it was difficult to lift my legs. Things seemed to be getting better by Saturday, but then on Sunday I went snowshoeing again and today I felt like my pants were cutting off my circulation. Coincidence? I hope not :)
So, officially stated, my hypothesis is this: My shrinking pants are not shrinking at all. Rather, my hip flexors are temporarily swolen as the result of overuse while snowshoeing. If my hypothesis is correct, then my pants should grow over the next couple of days until they resume fitting like normal.
What do you think? Is this a valid hypothesis or am I just making up new and creative excuses for my fatness? :)
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1 comment:
That sounds like a good one to me!
Can I borrow it. When I take giant steps walking in the swimming pool (for exercise), wouldn't that do the same thing>
Trouble is, my clothes were too tight even before I started going to the pool . . . Hmmm. maybe that won't work . . . :)
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