In the Denver Post today, there is an article explaining how an extra pat of butter would take you walking 1.25 miles to burn it off…
http://www.denverpost.com/fitness/ci_25266835/pants-too-tight-blame-your-treats.
While I think it’s helpful to understand the exchanges between calories eaten and calories burned, this isn’t the complete and truthful story.
Lets start off with the food part, then we’ll tackle why this isn’t true with exercise either.
We hear the expression, calories in equals calories out, and if we eat more than we burn we gain weight. Conversely, if we eat less then we lose weight. There is truth to this for sure, you need to get into a caloric deficit to lose weight. But, the question is what do you want to lose? Water weight or fat weight?
In my experience, when my clients soley track calories, they aren’t successful in losing body fat. Why? They tend to eat starches at most meals, not enough veggies, too many fruits, not enough protein all throughout the day, and too little fat. It makes me sad to see clients work SO hard at tracking their calories and really putting in a lot of effort, and not get results.
But, alas when we pay attention to these nutrients (fat, protein, carbohydrate) in the right balance and at the right time, fat loss magically occurs. Ok, maybe not magically, but it does happen.
Without getting too technical, I’ll share with you a bit of what happens. If you are eating starches all throughout the day, your body tends to produce insulin which promotes fat storage. When you time your starches and eat plenty of veggies, appropriate portions of protein and small amounts of healthy fats, your body can get into fat burning mode. Your body does really well with starches after you workout, so plan your meals and workouts to align together and you’ll be successful in fat loss. Again, it’s important not to overdo the calories even in the right balance, remember what I said earlier, you need to be in a deficit to lose weight. But, if you do it in the right balance you will lose fat weight and minimal to no water weight.
In addition, processed foods like hamburgers and pizzas are not processed in your body the same way that chicken, rice & broccoli are processed. Actually, since fast food and processed foods are so low in actual nutrients, your body doesn’t feel satisfied and wants more calories because it really is craving the nutrition it needs. Again, equal calories are not the same when it come to this comparison.
Ok, I promised to talk about exercise calories too. Its so easy to get excited about how many calories you see you’ve burned on the treadmill, but this is misleading. First off, the equations are WAY off, and not accurate at all. Trust me. Do not put all your faith in those readings… Plus, straight up cardio tends to not be successful for fat loss. Yes, you burn calories during the bout of exercise, but thats where the calorie burn ends.
When you strength train (resistance exercises) and do interval training, your body burns less calories than cardio DURING the exertion, but, your body continues to burn a higher amount of calories AFTER the bout of exercise, thus elevating your metabolism and helping with fat loss. If you aren’t doing any strength training, please start!
If you take anything from this post, understand that calories matter, but the type matters too. When it comes to exercise, don’t put all your eggs into one basket by only doing cardio. Be sure to add in strength training at least 1-2x per week. And ladies, I want to see you lifting heavy weights, no 1 pound pink dumbbells ok? You won’t get big, I promise!
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