You Cannot Out Exercise Food
Do you try to earn your meals by exercising?
Hopefully not but if you do please read this
I’ve heard people say they have to earn their dinner or earn their dessert. Or they say I’m naughty for eating this cookie because I haven’t exercised today. It’s this kind of unhealthy mentality with food I think I hear the most. People dictating what they eat based on their exercise that day. It’s not exactly a game you should play. It’s silly because it isn’t a game you can win.
We all know there are detrimental mental aspects to this kind of relationship with food so there’s nothing to prove here. I am barely qualified to speak about the mental component, so I won’t in a matter of fact kind of way, just my opinion kind of way. So take it how you like.
It’s this trap people put themselves in, for whatever reason, they can’t just eat something because they want to, they have to have earned it. I think we can all agree it’s not a fun place to live and can be a destructive manner in which to be with food. Earning money for a job isn’t the same as earning food to eat..
One thing that can be happening for some people is that they are fooling themselves into exercising. They wouldn’t exercise without the motivation of getting to eat. Could it be some kind of generational trauma from the yesteryears of cavemen? Cavemen having to work very hard to get to eat? Where does this stem from? There are a lot of options here and it’s a larger topic I cannot completely cover in one blog post. It’s definitely something to look at if you have an internal dialogue running on this specific behavior. If thoughts regarding this topic consumes your mind for the majority of a day, that’s a good indicator to have a little look.
There’s a big difference between exercising to exercise and exercising to be able to eat what you want. Everything requires a little balance. We can’t eat in an out of control manner, but we can eat what we like to an extent. Breakfast can’t look like a chocolate croissant every day, but it can be chocolate croissants one day here and there. Food is a necessity to live, it's not meant to influence how you feel.
Here is a harsh truth and a surface and logical reason to stop the earn your meals mentality:
You cannot out exercise food. Food will win everytime. I think it’s important for people to know that most machines, or apple watch apps, or whatever exercise tracking device you wear is SIMPLY NOT ACCURATE. I played pickleball with some friends for two hours and my friend said according to his watch he burned 1,500 calories. I assure you he did not, I didn’t say anything because I’m not that person. But all I could think was what does his mind do with this information? Sadly it’s false and he goes about his day thinking he’s burned half a pound.
Technology and exercise haven’t quite made their way to being that accurate. The most accurate in my opinion is a heart rate monitor with the chest strap. It has to have the capability to input your age, height, weight, and gender. Even with that pertinent information it can be very off. If you really want to be depressed, wear said chest strap and watch with your info put in and take a spin class or do a workout you’ve done before that you think is extremely challenging. When you see the amount of calories you actually burn, you will be upset and angry. What you will also learn is it is a fruitless endeavor to eat based on your exercise.
If you run for one hour you burn around 600 calories (depending on pace it could be more or less). Swimming burns even less. An hour spin class might get you 200-300.
The point is this mentality of earning food isn’t a thing in terms of it actually working. It also isn’t a healthy mentality. It’s a lose lose situation. I’m just saying you can’t win in this situation.