Achieving True Fitness: Exercise Alone Doesn’t Transform Our Bodies
It’s a mistake I often see and hear about: people share with me that they work out frequently, intensely, and with consistency and still aren’t seeing the results they want in their bodies!
It is a method I relied on for years and years (and years). And YEARS. I worked out, often and hard, but never saw the results in my body that I wanted to see. The result was overtraining, injuries, an exhausted body and frustrated mental state, and nothing to physically show for it.
It’s also why as a certified personal trainer and fitness coach I choose not to train the general population (I focus on special needs, senior citizens, and kids) – because most people are not willing to make the nutrition and other behavioral changes to reach the vision they have for themselves.
Why does this happen?
It’s like an urban legend – exercise more, lose weight; exercise hard, gain the body of your dreams! But that’s not how the science works.
If you think about how many calories a typical workout session burns, it’s peanuts (literally) compared to what a typical American consumes in a day. For example, a 155-pound person who participates in an aerobic activity for 30 minutes will burn about 198 calories. That’s barely more than a can of soda, or 2 tbsp hummus with some raw vegetables, or 34 peanuts. The average American consumes about 3,000 calories a day, so individuals who workout then use that to justify their food and beverage choices are going to be very disappointed in the results. Even if you double or triple your time in the gym, you still won’t produce adequate results to counteract average calorie consumption, and then exercise becomes more of a punishment for what we eat and drink than a way to treat out bodies right. If you focus on building muscle you’re at a little bit more of an advantage, since muscle will burn fat long after our workout session is complete. But in using exercise alone to try to transform our bodies, we’re always going to be playing catch up, and we’ll never be out ahead of it.
There is a time and place for exercise on the health continuum, and it can be used to add tone and muscle definition at a certain point, but before any of that can happen the most important piece is making sure your nutrition is dialed in. Food is the fuel in the vehicle that is your body. Since it is a holistic system, if you give your car gas but never check the oil or rotate the tires it will lead to more wear and tear, faster. Without proper nutrition and other behavior adaptions like sleep patterns and stress management, you will overtrain and under benefit.
Once you have your nutrition dialed in to align with your workout goals, then you will also need to add the elements of consistency and variety. Consistency over time is what creates best results once you’ve got the right program for your goals, and variety is important to avoid plateaus, create a balanced body and to alleviate boredom. A good mix of strength training 3 days a week, cardio 2 days a week and 1 day (minimum) of stretching is a great beginning protocol which you can then add time, intensity and frequency to as you progress.
The bottom line is you can’t out exercise poor nutrition, so your time, energy and money are best spent creating nutrition habits that you can then build on through exercise. In the end it will take less time and effort to gain the physical results once your nutrition is on point.
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