The Unintended Consequences Of Health Apps

So while you were freezing your asses off, I was strolling the sunny streets of Barcelona, another of my cheap travel deals.

Hello, my beauties:

It was 60 degrees there, and the locals, dressed in parkas, gaped at me like a crazy man for walking around in a t-shirt (I explained to a few that I was there to “warm up”, which only confirmed suspicions).

So I spent a lot of time enjoying the weather. Seeing as how I'm the last person on earth to have realized that iPhones track your walking, I’ve been getting a kick out of this feature for the past few months. And, wow, check this out:

I knew that I walk a lot while traveling, but I’d figured it was more like 2 or 3 miles/day. Given that I was burning the bejesus out of my calories, I scarcely felt compelled to refuse extra slices of fried potato omelet. And so my 100% extra exercise was negated by 125% extra eating, and I gained a couple of pounds.

Without this super-helpful health-forward app, I’d have eaten much more normally.


OTOH, my metabolism really juiced up. I came back with fingernails like claws. Lots of activity and plenty of well-distributed eating seem to be the way out of metabolic syndrome (the unhealthy state of a body that believes it's starving and has hunkered down into calorie conservation mode), though it's best if that eating is well-balanced re: protein/carb/fat, and sticks to lean protein, healthy fat, and complex carbs.