Yuck, Exercise

I am supposed to be getting some exercise and losing weight. I make vague attempts intermittently, but it's really pretty boring. On the plus side I do generally feel better when I do get some exercise. Mind you, we are not talking anything strenuous here, walking a couple of miles maybe.

The problem with walking is you have to deal with cars. Wherever you go, you eventually have to cross a street or a driveway and Murphy's law says that even if there is only one car within a hundred miles, it is going to arrive at that cross point at exactly the same time as you are, and then you have the who-has-the-right-of-way business. If you let the car go first, you are delayed much less than if the car has to wait for you. If the car lets you go first, that's nice, but what if there's a maniac (or an incompetent driver) behind the wheel who is just waiting for you to step in front of them before they mash on the gas pedal? I mean you wouldn't step in front of someone pointing a gun straight ahead would you? It's okay, you go ahead and cross in front of me, I promise I won't pull the trigger. Usually they don't, but about the time you finally get halfway across, they are tired of waiting and as soon as you are clear they gas it, leaving you with a bad taste in your mouth for moronic motorists everywhere.

Then there are stairs. Stair climbing is much more intensive, and I should be able to get a useful amount of exercise in much less time. I looked into this once before and I found several places that gave the number of calories burned per flight of stairs, but I don't remember the exact number. This time when I look, all I can find is number of calories burned per unit time, well, except for this one page, which references two other pages that have vanished. What is this? Some kind of conspiracy to eliminate useful information and replace it with useless information? Why, yes sir, that is exactly what is going on. How perceptive of you to notice.

Per unit time is not necessarily a good way to measure this sort of thing. A person will burn a 100 calories covering a mile whether they are walking or running. You would think that running might burn more, but it doesn't. It might be more difficult, but that is more a reflection of your level of fitness and how hard you push yourself. Running is more stenuous, so you will be burning calories at a faster rate. On the other hand, it will take less time to cover that mile, so you won't be burning calories for as long. Walking takes longer, you are burning calories slower, but you burn them for longer, so it comes out about the same.

Anyway, climbing stairs burns about 16 calories per flight, 10 calories going up and six calories going down. So climbing six flights of stairs should be the equivalent of walking a mile. I guess I
I'll give it a shot.