u/GreenScribbler

My watch is in wheelchair mode on purpose, because I'm a full time wheelchair user.

I'm decently active, racking up about 4000 pushes a day (equivalent to about 8000 steps) from my daily routine. Walking (self-pushing) to work, to the gym, to the grocery store, to hang with friends, etc.

Then I also train in the gym a few times a week, and "run". Which of course I log as activities.

Garmin's average calorie burn for me is 500 kcal less than my actual maintenance. (I've been tracking calories for 3 years).

This is with activity class 9. Which SHOULD be too high for me. Yes, height and weight are correct.

Yesterday I was laid up all day with a migraine. Literally all day. 5h of napping detected lol

It only gave me 100 kcal less burn than the days I'm racking up 2h of outdoor non exercise "walking" with my errands and general hyperactivity which just doesn't seem right.

It's occurred to me this may be a skill issue, though.

Am I meant to be starting an activity for every single 15min micro "walk" ?

It's worth mentioning there's another reason the estimates may be off, though:
I'm not a paraplegic. I have spastic ataxia and my leg musculature is a lot less atrophied. Actually, my leg and hip muscles are low-key contracting all the time because of spasticity. So my BMR is likely somewhere in between average para and an able bodied person of my size.

But the active calories on the watch seem ridiculously low regardless. Any ideas?

Anybody else seriously struggling with the difference between how you see yourself (My narrative="I'm strong, active and in my prime") and how others see you (Strangers think="Poor guy's in a wheelchair") ?

Specifically asking men & masc people, because it's pretty common for masculinity and the desire to be seen as strong to go hand in hand

I know, I know, you're supposed to, like, deconstruct and get over your toxicity.

Over the years, I have got a lot better about being gracious. And on a cerebral level, I know that help is a sign of being in a strong community and proof that a person is valued - not an insult or an indicator of weakness

But dude?

Knowing that in your head isn't good enough.

I was kind of in an OK place with the "toxic masculinity" before my neuromuscular disease hit the point where I lost my independent walking.

I think I could be "vulnerable enough" to be a mentally healthy able bodied person.

But as I am, every single act of consideration gets filtered through my paranoid lens of "Would he have done that if I still looked like I did in my boxing gym days?"

More often than not, the answer is, "Likely, yeah, fam. Some people are nice." But my brain won't see it that way.

For instance, today my gym session was ruined by somebody offering to spot me while I used a tricky machine. (It's not a particularly dangerous one, but it does involve me being high up, and my strategy to get out of my chair and up onto it looks pretty crazy to people who aren't used to me.)

This guy's offer is totally normal and good gym behaviour. This kind of thing should make me feel proud of my community for being a place where people look out for each other.

but it was all I could do to just keep my cool and thank him. Inside, I was so close to exploding that I had to derail the rest of my session and go hit the heavy bag for 15 minutes after.

And I'm still. Not. Over it.

I feel like I'm in a constant, futile fight to prove that I'm still me. Even after 5 years of highly visible disability, it hasn't lessened in the slightest.

I've got less weird about a couple of really minor, everyday things. (It used to drive me up the wall when people would cut so aggressively in front of me to hold the door that I had to slow to a stop and wait for them - but now I just thank them and laugh internally at the awkwardness.)

But the internal sense of struggle I have - waging an imaginary war against this "shadow self of infirmity" that I imagine existing in the minds of strangers -

It's endless. It's exhausting.

I'm so, so, angry about it. All the dang time.

Tell me I'm not alone in this. Please.

And for anybody who's been able to make progress toward peace, how did you do it?