We are combustion machines

Life is about a process of combustion from our bodies to the stars

Sometimes I ask myself when working out, going out for long runs, or just doing spinning on a static bike, on how so senseless it can be. I am eating food, lots of calories, increasing my activity has also increased my appetite. More expenditure in food costs and more eating.

This makes me reflect, that I am consuming all these calories to burn them in the gym or the tarmac, not really converting those calories into something really productive. Just producing a lot of energy, muscle activity, CO2 and sweat.

Meditating about all this increased activity can seem senseless, just a waste of energy for the sake of being in shape and having a healthy heart. I can save all the food, gym costs, running gear and effort and stay home and save energy for the sake of the environment and my pocket. A sedentary lifestyle can decrease your health and produce long term deterioration of your cardiovascular and endocrine system. So there is no other option to be healthy than to exercise, and that means burning calories. It is like there is no other way around to be healthy but to spend energy. You can get away having a healthy diet, but exercising can really increase your chances of having a healthier life.

So the only way around this is to really find a physical activity that can get you to move to a level that your cardiovascular system experiences some type of physical effort. There are tons of exercises around, from yoga, to team sports to CrossFit. All of them in a way exercise skills and muscle groups that puts the physical body into movement and cardiovascular effort.

So as senseless as it can be energy expenditure is absolutely necessary to keep a good health, there is no shortcut to have a healthy body without doing some exercise, which equals to burning calories.

Life is all about energy expenditure, if we go back to the origin of our universe, the beginnings of life start with the greatest and most miraculous source of energy, the stars. These astronomical bodies are the primordial source of energy in the universe, they just pour out vasts amounts of energy really without any real purpose. Our planetary system has just figured out a way to make use of all that energy in form of radiation, heat and light in order to create life in planet earth.

It seems that doing exercise and combusting energy in the gym isn’t as senseless as it looks like. Indirectly it is also contributing to our health and our purpose in this universe which is to transform and burn energy.