Exercise Vs Food

I like things to be simple. Simple for me is best. When I  look at a problem I avoid complexity and get back to basics. When I speak to people, I see that there are many different opinions out there. Different methods of how to do this and that.  There is more than one way to skin a cat if you will.

In regard to fat loss I see that different people focus on different elements to make the whole process come together. The interesting thing is that if you ask the successful ones, you will probably find that the method differed slightly. The ingredients are the same but in different amounts.

My personal perspective on fat loss is an easy one to grasp. Imbalance! Most of you already know what I mean. Burn more energy than what you eat! Energy in should be less than energy out. Essentially, fat loss is a process of the body using stored energy to fuel movement. If you want to burn more fat, move more or eat less. Done and done. Welcome to skinny town!

Sometimes I feel that people put too much reliance on exercise and not enough on the food.  I think exercise is the easy part. You come to the gym for a workout, train for an hour or 2 and go home. But what happens over the next 22 hours matters most. How much will you move & how much will you sit or sleep? How many times will you eat and how much will you eat or drink. This all matters and essentially leads us to weight gain or weight loss. A typical training day will see us train once and eat 3-6 times. Making dramatic change in caloric balance is potentially more easily achieved by manipulating food compared to manipulating exercise, simply because we are given more opportunities in the day.

Let’s imagine you ingested 500 calories at dinner last night. For you to come to the gym today and burn 500 calories, you will probably be exercising for over an hour! A more simple solution would be to eat 500 less calories that day .Essentially you have achieved the same result, right? Whether you burn or simply not eat it, the result is 500 less calories and because of the frequency in which we will eat in one day, we simply take a small amount away from the bigger meals to achieve the reduced calories.

Essentially all of the basic responses we aim for with exercise (fat loss, fitness, building muscles etc) are based on simple concepts. When fat loss stops, more often than not it is these fundamental factors we must consider. Movement and food! In some cases there may be other underlying reasons why fat loss is not occurring, but the fundamentals need to be investigated first. For help with your fat loss goals come and have a chat with myself or one of the other wonderful trainers here at Health Mates.