Your Ideal Form

Helping you on your journey to your best self!

Audrey D

Why Only Exercising to Lose Weight is a Mistake

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Why Relying Solely on Exercise to Lose Weight is a Mistake

There are plenty of benefits to exercising. But when it comes to strictly losing weight, relying solely on exercise is a mistake. Here’s why.

Exercise makes better television

Eating is fun. Watching people eat sensibly, however, is boring. So shows about weight loss tend to focus on the exercise. And making that exercise seem as extreme as possible. Making the exercise into a competition is even more entertaining to watch. This can lead to the thinking that burning all your calories through vigorous exercise is the only way to lose weight. But that’s far from the case. You don’t need to be extreme, just consistent. And you’ll make far faster progress by focusing on your eating habits than focusing on exercise.

“Dieting” is a scary word

Some people want to focus on exercise only because they do not want to “diet”. They enjoy exercise, which is great! And they would much rather do lots and lots of exercise than diet. They are afraid that “dieting” will require giving up their favorite foods. It doesn’t have to be that way. There are plenty of eating plans out there that allow you to indulge in your favorites and still lose weight. If you need help finding a diet plan that works for you, check out my free Ultimate Diet Comparison Guide.

Exercising is harder

Which is easier? Going for a two-mile run or doing nothing? It is far easier to do nothing (i.e. not eat something) than it is to try and burn those calories off later. If I have that candy bar, I’m going to have to run two miles to burn it off. Or, I could just sit here and do nothing (including not having the candy bar), and save myself the time and effort. If you plan your meals properly, you can also have that candy bar without having to worry about running it off later!

Exercise makes you hungrier

Exercise is great for revving up your metabolism. An unfortunate side effect of this is that it makes you hungry. So you spend an hour on the treadmill, only to be starving afterward, and then you go home and eat the entire kitchen. If you’re trying to lose weight, it can be hard enough to stick to your meal plan. But being hungry on top of that is no fun. If you can, plan your workouts so that you’ll have a meal right after, and be sure to prep out that meal ahead of time so you don’t accidentally overeat.

Exercise isn’t all that effective

Exercise is awesome, don’t get me wrong. It will help you get stronger. Improve your cardiovascular functions. Sweating it out can improve the look of your skin. It can boost your mood and your confidence. It will tone your muscles and make you look great in a swimsuit (or naked!). But strictly for weight loss? It isn’t all that great. Studies have repeatedly shown that cardio machines overestimate how many calories you burn while using them. And humans are just as bad at estimating as well. Exercise just doesn’t burn as many calories as we hope it will. This can be a problem when we complete a really hard workout (great!), feel really good about ourselves (aweseome!), and then think that it’s okay to eat back some of those calories because we worked so hard (uh-oh). The elliptical said you burned 200 calories, but it could have been overestimating by 42%!

Diet is the key

If your goal is to lose weight, then your best bet is managing your diet. Eating the right foods/right amounts will get you to your destination so much quicker. You just can’t out-exercise a bad diet. It doesn’t matter how hard you work in they gym if you don’t control what you put on your plate. Nutrition is key. You do not have to give up your favorite foods. You just might have to learn to enjoy them in smaller quantities. Learn just how much energy your body needs, and try not to eat more than that.

Challenge: Track your calories eaten vs calories burned during exercise for one week. See what a huge difference there is in those numbers. (Most of the calories we burn during the day is stuff our bodies do to keep us alive, like keeping our core temperature up and pumping blood and so forth. You’re not expected to burn off all your calories eaten via exercise (you wouldn’t have time to do anything else otherwise!))

Side Effects of Exercise

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Side effects of exercise

Exercise is fantastic. It makes you feel great, and can help you turn around a bad day. While getting your diet on track is the express lane to reaching your weight loss goals, exercise is what is going to make you look good naked. Whether it’s going for a walk around the block with your family, hitting the weights at the gym, playing a sport, or training for a competition, getting your body moving has so many benefits. Our bodies were made to move, and they feel better when they do! So get up out of that chair! Take a minute to stretch. Maybe do some jumping jacks or a few push-ups to just get the blood flowing.

WARNING! Side effects of exercise include: Increase in energy¹, a good mood², weight-loss³, reduced stress4, boost in immune system5, boost in productivity6, improved quality of life7.

 

  1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18277063
  2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26929085
  3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24438736
  4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28185925
  5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19001887
  6. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21785369
  7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24602398

 

How to Use a Kitchen Scale

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How to Use a Kitchen Scale

I’ve talked about different technologies I’ve used to help me reach my goal weight. But the number one device that was the most instrumental to my success is definitely my kitchen scale. More than any app, workout, or even my FitBit, my kitchen scale is truly the star of the show. Weighing out what I eat let me be as precise as possible when logging my intake. Here are some tips for getting the most out of this appliance.

Get one.

The first step is to actually get a kitchen scale. They are pretty inexpensive, and a decent digital scale can go for around $15. You can pick one up at stores like Target or Bed Bath and Beyond, or check Amazon for a wider selection.

Leave it out.

The next step is to actually use your kitchen scale. Leave it out on the counter so you remember to use it. You are also more likely to use your scale if it is right there rather than having to dig it out of a cabinet.

Tare it.

The tare (rhymes with hair) button on your scale will zero the scale out. This is an awesome feature that is not to be overlooked! It means that you don’t have to do math when logging your food. Turn on the scale. Place your empty plate on the scale. Now hit that tare button. The scale goes to zero. Load up your plate with your first ingredient, say some veggies. Log your veggies. Now hit the tare button again so the scale again goes to zero. Add the next food. Perhaps some rice. Log the amount of rice. Hit tare again. Add more food to the plate. Log it. Hit tare…. This way you don’t have to do math, and you also don’t need to dirty any extra dishes or containers while measuring out your food.

Use it.

It’s important to use your scale regularly. After awhile, you’ll get much better at estimating your portion sizes, but even so, continue to measure. It’s far too easy to start just guessing at a serving size, and soon, those servings start creeping up in size. Even after hitting my goal, I still use my scale to make sure that my intake isn’t creeping up. You don’t want to undo all that hard work!

Don’t guess.

A scale lets you be as accurate as possible when tracking your nutrition. A serving of grapes might be 10 grapes, but is that 10 small grapes? Green grapes? What about those big globe grapes? It’s more precise to just weigh it out and log 100 grams of grapes. It’s also useful when things like chips will list a serving size as so many grams or ounces and then say that it’s “about” 14 chips. Instead of counting it out, you can just measure the more accurate serving size.

I lied.

Ok, so using the tare button does prevent you from having to do math. IF your tracking allows you to log things in ounces or grams. But what happens when your only option for measurement is in cups or spoons? I see this a lot when I bake. One cup of sugar. Well, how many grams is that? Baking is chemistry, and getting the amounts juuuuuuuust right yields the best results, both taste and texture-wise. So I use my kitchen scale when measuring out my ingredients for the most accuracy. And my brownies and cookies are phenomenal. But this baking prowess does require some conversion wizardry. To make it easier on you, I’ve created a list of common ingredients and their measurement-to-weight equivalents so you can easily reference it whenever you need. Just fill out the form below to download your free conversion chart and get your kitchen scale working for you!

Reaching Your Goal Weight is 100% Possible

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The thing about reaching your goal weight is that it's 100% possible. It's completely in your control. The only thing stopping you from getting there is you. So get out of your own way.

You CAN reach your goal. Even if you have a big, huge, hairy, audacious goal. You can get there! It won’t necessarily be easy though. You’re going to have to want it. Bad. You’re going to have to make your goal a top priority. You may have to give something up. But more than likely, you will gain so much more! Health, confidence, even a new zeal for life. Set aside the excuses and you will succeed.

The thing about reaching your goal weight (whether that’s on the scale or on the bar!) is that it’s 100% possible. It’s completely in your control. The only thing stopping you from getting there is you. So get out of your own way.

Fitness Tracker Wearables

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FitnessTrackers

As a self-proclaimed geek, I am a big fan of modern technology, and using it to make my life easier. And it’s no different in the realm of weight loss and fitness. I’ve already covered apps you can use to track nutrition and to help you get in some exercise, but let’s talk about tracking that exercise now. Many nutrition apps will also have a way for you to log your fitness, but they tend to be woefully inaccurate. Your current height, weight, metabolism and intensity will all determine how many calories you burn for a given activity, and these vary greatly from person to person. A fitness tracker that incorporates a heart rate monitor can much more accurately determine how much work you did, rather than just give you an average.

I personally have had a FitBit Blaze for about a year now. It has an integrated heart rate monitor. Food that I tracked via the SparkPeople app was synced with my food log on FitBit. The FitBit dashboard would then let me know my calorie surplus or deficit for each day, as well as a running total for the week. When I took this number, divided it by 3500 (the number of calories in a pound) I found that between the watch and my tracking, it was a fairly accurate determination of how much weight I would lose each week.

Now, a recent study shows that people using a fitness tracker lose less weight than those without. These findings may turn you off to a tracker, but I want to address what’s really going on in the human psyche that led to these results. The study compared two groups. Both were told to exercise a certain amount, but one group had the fitness tracker, and the other group did not. The reason those with the tracker lost less weight is due to the feedback of the device. If your goal is to hit 2,000 steps, as soon as the device tells you you’ve hit that number, you’ll quit. If you don’t have that, and you know you have to walk about a mile to get to that number, you might walk a bit extra to be certain you get all those steps in since you have no way of knowing for sure. The thing is, this can also work in reverse. You may look at your tracker and realize you need so many steps to hit a goal and get up and move around some to hit that number.

Personally, both of the above have happened to me. My tracker reminds me to move every hour, and has me try and get 250 steps each hour. It reminds me of this goal 10 minutes before the hour is up if I haven’t met it yet. In the mornings, I will pace while my coffee is brewing to hit that number. But as soon as I do hit that number, I’ll stop. So the tracker does get me to move! I probably wouldn’t pace at all if it wasn’t prodding me to do so. But I also only do the minimum to get that number and then stop. And there’s also the psychology of how close I am. If I only need a few more steps, then I am far more motivated to hit that goal. It’s so close! But if I have a long way to go, if I’ve been sitting all hour doing work and I have to get all 250 steps in during those 10 minutes, I am far more likely to just ignore it. (While writing this, my watch told me I have 201 steps left this hour. That’s probably not going to happen.) (Conversely, this past weekend we spent a day in New York City and did a LOT of walking. When we came home, I realized I was only 1000 steps from getting a new milestone badge for 25K steps walked in a single day, so I had my fiance drop me off a block from home and I walked the rest of the way to hit that goal!)

Another reason that those with a fitness tracker possibly lost less weight is due to the feedback of calories burned. Since the tracker does the logging for you, you know how many calories you burned doing an activity. Seeing this number can make it very tempting to eat back some of those calories.

If you aren’t currently regularly exercising, and getting a wearable motivates you to move more, then getting one is definitely better than not getting one, especially if you tend to get into a zone with your work and forgetting to get up from your  chair all day. (I have been guilty of this at times!)

Also, another very important thing to keep in mind is that fitness wearables are designed to track activity, but diet is the bigger battle in the weight loss war. If your goal is to lose weight, then tracking your nutrition and hitting your calorie/macro/points numbers is way more critical to achieving success.

Don’t Give Up Because of One Setback!

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Giving up on your goal because of one setback is like slashing your other three tires because you got a flat.

Sometimes, it can be tough to recover when we mess up. You kinda want to just throw in the towel and say “screw it” for the rest of the day/week/month/year. But a mistake isn’t the end of the world, and it’s certainly not a reason to give up. You don’t need to wait for a whole new day/week/month/year to get back on track. You can work on getting back on track immediately. Drinking some water is always a great, easy first step.

Remember, don’t get greedy. It’s great to shoot for perfection, but don’t let it become the enemy of the good. Just because you won’t have a perfect day, doesn’t mean it still can’t be a good day, or even a great day. Small progress is still progress! Getting over your setback and taking one small step in the right direction is still one step closer to reaching your goals.

Giving up on your goal because of one setback is like slashing your other three tires because you got a flat.