Super Salty

Hi everybodddy!

Happy Thursday! :)

As I "tweeted" earlier (still can't believe I'm on the twitter-verse!), things went from busy to bonkers today.

I took on a full day at the office to get caught up on work, and it was definitely a full one.

With that said, ya'll know this is my favorite weekday, so it's been pretty pleasant up in here.

My day was off to a great start as soon as I saw this...

Have I mentioned that I love this city?!

I could just hear everyone letting out a collective sigh or relief this morning as they walked to work.  The sun has finally returned to Chi-City after some relentlessly gloomsville days. 

Wanna know what was not-so-pleasant? How super salty sweaty I was during & after last night's Barre Burn class.

We are talking this...

Times about 3! Yiiiiickkkk.

I usually consider the super sweats a victory, but last night got a little outa hand! We are talking dripping on the floor, dripping in my eyes (stinging!), and making it very difficult to grip the barre, which can be quite concerning considering some of the positions we get into.

I was looking around, once again, wondering, what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks is goin' on here?! Why am I the sweatiest friggen person in this room?? I actually started to get a little self conscious about my drippage.

I know what you're all thinking, "NBD, Jess, it's 90+ degrees in that room, you're supposed to sweat." Well, touche, you are right.

The thing that has me all out of sorts is that I've never considered myself to be a big sweater.  I certainly have never been the sweatiest person in an exercise class. Why am I sweating like miss piggy all of a sudden when all of these other ladies have barely a glisten of moisture on their bodies?!

(source)

I decided it was time to crack the case.  So, I did what I always do -- I pulled out my webMD and tried to get to the bottom of this new personal phenomenon.

Along the "research" trail I learned an awful lot about the salty wetness.

1) We all have between 2 and 4 million sweat glands in our body. Woahhh. Everyone is born with a different amount of these glands -- the more ya have, the more ya sweat!

2) We actually don't have a lot of sweat glands in our armpits. Whhhaaaat?!? I guess we just tend to omit body oder more from the arm pit area because the sweat isn't able to evaporate as quickly from that area.

3) Us ladies tend to sweat less than men because have a better natural ability to regulate the amount of water we are losing. Yaaahooo.

Here's the kicker...

4) Fit people sweat more efficiently that "unfit" people.  People who are more fit actually start to sweat at a lower body temperature than others.  Innneresting!

But...

5) A sedentary person (aka a couch potato) who does the same intensity workout as a fit person will get hot a lot faster, and will probably sweat more than the fit person. This is because fat acts as an insulator and raises that person's body core temperature faster.

(source)

So am I getting fitter? Or am I just getting fatter?

The jury may still be out on that one after last weekend's over consumption, but until I'm proved wrong with my next bi-weekly "weigh in," I'm going with the former.

The cray-zee thing is, I used to think it was a huge plus that I could walk out of the gym dry as the dessert while other girls were racing home to strip off their wet clothes and dive into a cold shower.

Seems I shouldn't have been so proud.  My dryness might have meant I just wasn't pushing my body hard enough to actually improve my fitness.

I guess I should pat myself on the back and take the extra gross-ness in stride.

And maybe pack a change of clothes next time... ;)

Something to talk about: Are you a sweaty betty? Or can you head straight to work after the gym without turning heads?

Hope you all have a great night! We will be enjoying some of my healthy(ish) pizza for dinner, and I'm cooking up an extra special recipe for tomorrow.  It's gonna be saaawweeeet, so stay tuned! :)

xoxo

Jess