takes an hour to burn off 500 calories + 2 minutes to eat them!

12^th October 2011

Every success is built on the ability to do better than good enough. Unknown

I finished on 36pp yesterday and the same on Monday, I’m pleased with that as it’s my daily allowance of 29 plus 1/7^th of my weeklies, and I have already earned 25 activity ProPoints towards my weekend.  I’m starting to get control over my appetite after exercising which can only be a good thing, and I’m getting better at eating breakfast, I had poached egg on a bagel yesterday, mmm.

Can exercise make you fat?  Remember I gained a pound last week even thought I’d earned almost one hundred activity, cycled 26 miles and ran 12 miles! 

The answer is of course NO but it could be YES, a lot of people take up exercise such as jogging to help lose weight. But the latest research shows it could have just the opposite effect. Why?  Is it muscle weighing heavier than fat.  No it’s usually because you’re ravenous after a workout or a run so head straight to the kitchen and eat anything you can get your hands on, OR you feel you’ve just done a load of exercise and burnt calories so you can afford a treat. 

I mean look what we ate after our 26 mile ride, we earned 15 Activity ProPoints then had a 40pp mixed grill and a 15pp rhubarb crumble and custard followed by a celebratory pint of lager for another 6pp.  That’s 61pp spent and only 15pp earnt, even if you add my daily allowance of 29pp, I’m still in deficit of 17pp. 

Same with my running, I earned 10pp running for 55 minutes yesterday so if I then was to go treat myself to a big mac for 13pp and fries for another 13pp, it was a bit of a waste of time!  Some people gain weight because they consume far more calories than if they hadn't done any exercise.

The idea that exercise leads to weight loss, can be a common misconception. I have been active on and off for years. Net weight loss through exercise: zero. When I walked up Snowdon three times in one day,  I put on weight. At the time, this seemed astonishing to my members. In fact, it is quite common. This is partly because muscle is denser than fat. But there is also a more subtle connection. Getting up at 4am to walk 26 miles up and down a mountain three times demands an increase in calorie intake. My response? Was to eat dried fruit and nuts all day long, and celebrate with cake and champagne when we’d finished.

"It is possible to lose weight with dietary changes alone," explains Laura Clark, a registered dietician with the British Dietetic Association, "but to lose weight just through exercising is very difficult. You would have to exercise at high intensity for three to four hours or more a week, and not many people can fit that in."

It is fair to describe my behaviour during training for any of my previous endeavors as gluttonous, but it exemplifies the two principal reasons why anyone exercising to lose weight is unlikely to succeed.

First up is the reward element. An apple is rarely appealing after you've worked up a sweat. It's very easy to think, when you've been to the gym, that you deserve a treat. The reality is that the number of calories you have to make up for is usually very few.

We gravitate towards rewarding ourselves after exercise with sweet treats, which is like taking one step forward and two steps back.

One pound of fat equates to 3,500 calories. You need a deficit of 500 calories a day to lose a pound, so rewarding yourself with a burger or a cake will automatically cancel out that deficit. The catch is that this is so easy to do.
It can take an hour to burn off 400 or 500 calories, and just two minutes to eat that

So if you’ve been reading about my running and my weight loss this week, you need to realise that I’ve tracked and ProPointed everything I’ve eaten, I’m eating less than I’m earning. 

It’s better to exercise than not to exercise, but if it’s followed by a treat, be aware of the ProPoints earned. Running for 55 minutes does not buy me a donor kebab – more like 2 poached eggs on toast. 

I’m enjoying my running and I’ll go today, at the same time I’m not expecting it to be my miracle cure. 

Enjoy your day. xx