Every year, it’s the same story.
The countdown to the end of January is on, but New Year gym enthusiasts are counting up the pounds. Despite slaving away on the treadmill, that ring around their middle hasn’t budged because they’re only doing half the work.
They’re like 18-year-olds in the casino – no idea how to gamble, expecting to rake in the dough, but more likely to blow it all right out of the starting gates.
How many times have you seen someone, fresh out of an early workout, head to the coffee shop and order a bagel and latte – double the calories they just burned?
In the first few days of the New Year, gyms fill up with bold newbies, trying to figure out how to work the treadmill and grunting over weights not much more than a carrot stick’s calorie count.
Not that they would know a carrot stick’s calorie count. (It is about six, in case you were wondering.)
This is why, when results fail to materialize in the first few weeks of January, the gym is back to a half-empty state.
Nutrition, not exercise, is the number one factor affecting weight loss.
Michelle McCormick, trainer at Bridlewood Goodlife Fitness, says in the battle of the bulge, 80 per cent of the fight is about nutrition.
She says people who think they can eat more if they start going to the gym are actually doing themselves a disservice.
Too many people buy into the myth that exercise is the only key to fitness and they don’t think about what they’re putting into their bodies.
In a plan aimed at losing weight – and even adding muscle – nutrition is even more important than the exercise.
But that knowledge just hasn’t been absorbed – that’s obvious when you look at the number of gym goers who hop out of the gym right into the lineup at the coffee shop before heading to work, pumping all the calories they just worked off right back into their bodies.
If they had switched the bagel and cream cheese (404 calories at Tim Hortons) for a yogurt and plain whole wheat toast (150 calories), they could have skipped 25 minutes of running on the treadmill and broken even. Of course, these numbers depend on brand names and body weight, but the general principle is still there.
If they ate the yogurt and toast and ran for 30 minutes five days a week, there would be a one pound (3,500 calories) potential weight loss every two weeks from that change alone.
It seems so simple, doesn’t it?
When trying to lose weight, no matter how many complicated diets and fitness plans you see out there, it all boils down to this basic concept: eat less calories than you burn each day.
Yet people still sweat it out without lowering that calorie count. They could get the same calorie benefits with a better breakfast and cutting out that afternoon donut.
McCormick says that a lot of people have no idea how many calories they are pouring on with their morning caffeine fix.
This doesn’t discount the benefits of a regular exercise routine. Cardiovascular exercise has long term health benefits, and a more muscular body composition burns more calories on a daily basis.
But working out and forgetting about the fuel you’re feeding your body is like working at a job you hate all day, just to blow your entire wage on a bad poker hand.
One step forward, two steps back. But turn those two steps back into a proper nutrition plan, and you’ll be a leap ahead.