Pure Conjecture

There is something I've wondered about my physical condition for years. I wonder both how it can be and whether other Lyme patients experience it. I have wild theory that is pure conjecture and probably nonsensical. I'll throw it out to the universe and see how many scoffs, chuckles or expressions of wonderment it generates.

Or maybe someone can even explain it to me.

For much of my youth and adult life I have been physically active. For many years I was a competitive athlete. If teaching aerobics counts, I guess I was even professional. So, I've always been rather fit and I'm naturally slender. I don't tend to gain wait. Though I have done since being ill, its not a worrisome gain. At 5'11" I can carry 155 or 160 pounds. Currently I'm at about 145.

These past few years, I've been rather sedentary. On days when I think I can manage not getting lost in my own neighborhood, I walk the dog. I don't do much more because I need supervision if I'm to avoid injury and I can't afford to pay someone to supervise me. (I really need supervision to navigate my days in general, but that's another topic.) So, I sit around the house most of the time. Writing. Reading. Supervising homework. Spacing out.....

In all these years of inactivity, however, I have not lost my musculature. Why haven't I atrophied at all? Why is it that after months of sitting on my arse, I can still, on a good day, hike up a hill or ski for 5 hours as though I had never stopped exercising?

In my two days of skiing last week, I pushed my body because it was exhilarating to do so. It was joyous to feel my quadriceps burning. I kept waiting for my legs to give out. Granted I was on easy slopes with my daughter for a bunch of the time. It was work though, practically skating across and pushing so many turns on a run with almost no slope and soft, mushy spring snow. Then, each day I had at least 2 hours to ski by myself. I was taking long runs down the intermediate slopes. Ok, a lot less turning without having to go slow for someone else's sake. Still, I did ski the glades where you have to turn often to avoid trees. Even if it was all gentle exercise, it was a 4 hours of it.

Why weren't my legs tired at the end? Why didn't I have muscle soreness? Shouldn't my body be reeling from the sudden use after such a prolonged period of inactivity?

My acupuncturist used to marvel at the fact that I wasn't losing muscle strength. He had no explanation for it. No one does. It doesn't make sense.

So, here's my wild hair of a theory which has no basis in any practical science at all: maybe this beehive that's roaring inside of my body is electrical. Could it be that the constant activity of my nerves is actually stimulating my muscles?

I have no idea if there is any physiological basis for this having any possibility of truth. I simply know that I should not be fit now. Yet, I am. My car was rear-ended two years ago and I received a back injury. I went for physical therapy. When they did their strength and flexibility measurements, I was stronger and more flexible than most. How is that? The only muscles that I work out these days are in my fingers. Why do I still have defined biceps and calves? Why can I hike up the hill with my friends and be in the front of the pack? And never feel like I've exerted myself? How is it that my resting heart rate is 50. Up a whole 3 beats per minute from my highly fit days of 47. I used to run miles every day. I understood a 47 bpm heart rate then. Shouldn't it be higher now that I'm a couch potato?

Any other Lyme patients have this phenomenon? Any other neuropathy patients? Anyone understand how this can be?