If you've ever rewarded yourself with a cookie, brownie, cupcake, or glass of wine for exercising, raise your hand and raise it high. I’m raising my hand because I’ve totally done this. In fact, I used to do this all the time (more than I’d like to admit). What I learned was this habit actually kept me in what felt like an infinite loop of not being able to lose weight and keep it off.
Now just to be super clear and to get the record straight, I’m all for indulging. I love enjoying a delicious brownie, cinnamon roll, or adult beverage on the weekends but I do it within reason. I actually encourage my clients to indulge in foods and beverages that make them happy and brings them joy because we all have to live your life. The problem comes when you fall into the mindset of “I can eat whatever I want because I worked out.”
This mindset makes you fall into the trap of exercising for the wrong reasons. So, if this is you, you're definitely not alone. I hear this all the time from my clients. And like I mentioned before, I said it for years. This was my way of justifying eating too many baked goods and processed food.
Today I'm sharing with you how to get out of this infinite loop (yes, there is a way) to get the weight loss results you want from your exercise routine.
Let's start with how exercise actually supports fat loss and a sustainable healthy weight. I'm going to share a little bit of hard truth with you, which you may or may not have already heard, but the calories-in/calories-out method doesn’t actually work the way that we were taught. We’ve been taught to eat less calories and do more cardio to burn those calories that we ate so we can stay in a caloric deficit.
The realistic big picture of the calories-in/calories-out method is it's actually difficult to measure accurately. And here's why. Calories-in (food you eat) can be easily tracked through an app. There's so many apps available for you to input exactly what you ate throughout the day and it will calculate how many calories you consumed in a specific day. The challenge with this is it can be time consuming and you have to be consistent with it to get an accurate measurement.
An even bigger challenge is calculating how many calories you actually burn throughout the day because it's not just about exercise. Yes, you burn calories when you do cardio or a strength training session. But your body also burns calories when you sleep, digest food, menstruate, and when your organs are doing their job to keep you alive. So, without being in a lab setting it's very difficult to measure all of this.
How you can get out of this infinite loop? Now that we’ve cleared up that the calories-in/calories-out method is not really a good measurement of weight loss, let’s talk about which type of energy your body uses when you're exercising. Understanding this will help you flip the script and shift your focus to what matters most with exercise and weight loss.
When you're doing a low level cardio workout where your heart rate gets up high enough to where your breathing is a little heavier and a bit more intense than normal and you can still carry on a conversation with someone, your body is burning mostly fat. A few examples of this are walking, swimming, a light run, hike, an easy bike ride, and strength training sessions.
When you do more intense workouts like high intensity interval training where you're getting your heart rate up super high for a short period of time and then resting, giving your body an opportunity to catch its breath, your body is burning glucose, which is the storage form of carbs in your body.
Now that you know this, think about the energy you use while exercising in the form of carbs and fat rather than calories. Calories are important. We need to eat enough calories so our bodies can function properly and keep us alive. But when you shift your focus off the calories, it's easier to align the food you eat with your fitness efforts.
So, rather than saying “I worked out today so I can eat whatever,” consider saying “I worked out today so I’ll eat whole, nutrient dense foods to support my body.” Because when you deplete your glucose stores in your body from a high intensity interval workout, you want to replenish them, right?
Now there are a few of ways to do this. One way is by eating starchy or non-starchy carbs. If you're doing a lot of high intensity interval training, I would recommend, focusing on eating whole food starchy carbs (i.e. potatoes). There's a lot of fitness and influencers on social media that eat candy after a workout to replenish glucose. This is something I’m not a fan of. I don't think candy or cake is an effective way to really replenish your glucose stores. I’ll get to how to indulge in a healthy way in a sec, just stay with me.
Another way to replenish your glucose stores is to eat enough protein. Enough is a very general term because everyone needs different amounts of protein. There's a lot of variables that go into calculating recommended protein intake such as your strength goals. If you really want to build lean muscle mass, adequate protein intake is key. When you eat protein, your body has the ability to break it down in your body to make glucose. I talked more about this in the last episode about intermittent fasting. So if you haven't done so already, head back to last week's blog here and give it a read.
Let’s dive into indulging and how to approach it in a way that supports your weight loss efforts. When you catch yourself saying “I worked out today so I'm going to eat half a pizza” or “I'm going to eat two pieces of cake or an entire box of cookies" pause for a sec and ask yourself why you’re eating the pizza. Why are you eating the cookies? Why are you eating the cake? I know this might sound a weird at first, but taking a step back helps you put things into perspective. If your first response is, “I'm gonna eat this because I worked out today and I earned it” consider putting the pizza, cake, or cookies down to think about it.
If you are eating it because you want to enjoy pizza night with your family or you’re at a party, then go for it. Eat the pizza, enjoy it and savor every single bite. I tell this all the time to my clients and I remind myself of it when I'm indulging.
Another question to consider asking yourself is “Is this actually supporting my fitness efforts?” You work hard to workout even though you may not feel it in the moment. I see it all the time with my fitness clients. They may not be sweating dripping sweat by the end of the workout or their legs may not feel like jello (you know what I’m talking about), but I know every single one of them is putting in the effort based on their ability and their fitness level. And this is something to be celebrated.
Remind yourself that it's not about rewarding the exercise with eating junk food or eating baked goods or drinking an entire bottle of wine. It's about rewarding your efforts to replenish the glucose and fat that you burned. When you do this with whole foods, you’ll naturally replenish your calories in a way the supports your exercise efforts.
To sum it all up, something that we say in our home that my husband taught me years ago is you can't exercise your way out of a poor diet. If you're trying to exercise your way out of a poor diet, you're going to stay in that infinite loop of not being able to lose weight and keep it off.
If this is you right now, what’s one thing you can do to get you out of the infinite loop?
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