If you think you can burn off unhealthy extra calories by exercising, consider that it’s a lot harder to accomplish and doesn’t quite work that way.
Consuming unhealthy, extra calories is often justified with “I worked out today; I deserve it,” thus creating a psychological reward for exercising. Exercise is also conducted in a way that causes carb cravings, such as daily, long-mileage activity. This type of workout burns up glucose stores, causing these increased carbohydrate cravings. It is common to overestimate calories burned and to underestimate calories consumed. For example, you may burn 300–400 calories on the elliptical machine in 30 minutes, but a 16 oz. Pumpkin Spice Latte (380 calories) at Starbucks will undo it quickly—unless you are a super exerciser, such as Olympian Michael Phelps, with six hours of exercise every day.
Every calorie you eat, whether it be fat, carbohydrate, or protein, is absorbed differently based on its chemical makeup, so you can’t just burn off the bad ones. The type of calories you eat makes a difference. The less broken down a food is, the more digestive work your body will do, and thus the more calories will be burned. For example, a complex carbohydrate (such as quinoa) is less broken down before entering the body than white flour is.
The whole muscle-burns-more-than-fat idea is true but only by a little. Fat will burn two calories a day at rest, and muscle will burn six, according to Claude Bouchard of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center. The heavier you are, the higher your basal metabolic rate (how many calories you burn at rest) is. So if you’re gaining muscle and losing weight overall, this may equal a few extra potato chips. Not enough to eat that extra pint of Ben and Jerry’s.
In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless.
– Eric Ravussin, chair in diabetes and metabolism at Louisiana State University and prominent exercise researcher
Fresh Ideas to Extend Your Expiration Date
- Find a different motivation for exercise than lattes, pizza, or pasta. Instead of visualizing your next meal, visualize how you will feel after you are done and how this will improve your quality of life now and in the future.
- Don’t fall into the trap of justifying poor eating decisions with exercise. If you are going to eat something that is bad for you, just do it, but don’t justify it. You’re lying to yourself, and rationalization can lead to many more unhealthy choices. Make the decision to make poor eating choices consciously, without fooling yourself that they aren’t that bad. Once you recognize a bad habit, you can change it. If you keep rationalizing it, you can never make a change.
- Know that exercise is a lifestyle habit that you get to do for the rest of your life. It is as crucial as eating, sleeping, and drinking water. The need for an active lifestyle never goes away
- Exercise with a goal in mind of feeling good and getting healthier versus how it will make you look.
- The type of exercise that you do, such as running or biking long distances, impacts the food choices you are likely to make. Constant cardio exercise causes an increased craving for carbohydrates. Satisfying these cravings will really cause you to keep on the weight.
Learn More
In his book, The Cure for Everything: Untangling Twisted Messages about Health, Fitness, and Happiness, Timothy Caulfield goes in-depth about exercise and nutrition myths, using himself as a test subject.
The website jonnybowdenblog.com is an interesting commentary from a “rogue nutritionist” and author of nine books. Jonny Bowden’s blog, Exercise Isn’t Good for Weight Loss, is full of good information that is not mainstream yet.
