This May Help You?

Geof and Todd talk about how snacks can and can't impact your weight loss . Turns out just changing the name snack to something else helps! 

This is one of the most asked questions by many people when they start working out.  Geof and Todd take on this question and discuss why this is really a very difficult question to answer with any accuracy and why it might not matter to your ultimate goals.

Intuitively diet quality must be important for weight loss.....but is it?  In this episode we discuss the importance of diet quality in the context of weight loss and why we believe (and the data say) that maybe diet quality is better suited to helping you improve your health AFTER losing weight, and not during your actual weight loss.

In Episode 13: Is Weight Loss an All or Nothing Pursuit, Geof and Todd discuss whether they believe that weight loss can be achieved by incorporating small changes into your life over time or whether drastic changes are necessary to lose weight and keep it off. 

In Episode 12: Why You Can’t Lose Weight with (Just) Exercise, Geof and Todd discuss how exercise, in and of itself, is ineffective for losing weight.  The reason being is that it is far too easy to consume calories and very, very difficult to burn them.  Despite this calories in/calories out relationship, the fitness industry is all too eager to sell weight loss solutions even though weight loss is one of the things the fitness industry is the worst at doing.  So why does the fitness industry sell you weight loss solutions if they are so bad at it?  Because people want to lose weight and people care about losing weight so the fitness industry sells people what they want.  What the fitness industry does not do a good job of selling to people are the hundreds and probably thousands of other benefits that result from an exercise routine.  Geof and I spend a better part of this podcast defining how we think that our relationship with exercise shouldn’t revolve around weight loss but should be about getting stronger to make your day-to-day activities easier, moving without pain, supplementing your active hobbies, relieving stress, and sleeping better.

If Geof and I were forced to place percentages on how important diet and exercise are to weight loss, we would have to say that diet is responsible for 80-90% of your weight loss results and exercise making up the remaining 10-20%.  Again, it is very easy to consume calories but very difficult to burn them.  The example that I commonly use in class is that the hot do eating champion, Joey Chestnut, can consume 70 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes and approximately 20,000 calories.  Conversely, an ironman athlete who swims 2.4 miles, bikes 112 miles, and runs a marathon (26.2 miles) during 10 continuous hours of highly strenuous activity can only hope to burn 10-12 thousand calories depending on body size and finishing time.  To put that into perspective, people are capable of eating 20,000 calories in 10 minutes, twice the number of calories that an ironman triathlete burns in 10 hours.  Although this is an extreme example, it illustrates just how easy it is to consume calories and just how difficult it is to burn them.

To lose weight an energy deficit must be created (calories in < calories out) and the math just is not on the side of exercise.  Although beyond the scope of these podcast notes, calorie for calorie, it is far easier to not eat a calorie than it is to burn one off.  The old saying of “you can’t out-exercise a bad diet” is completely accurate.  As Geof states in our podcast, you will lose more weight sitting on the couch and not eating anything for two weeks than the weight you will lose while vigorously exercise training for 60 minutes/day for two weeks.

Exercise has hundreds and thousands of benefits.  There is no doubting that.  But it probably should be viewed as a compliment to diet for weight loss and the maintenance of the weight you lose rather than a primary solution for losing weight.  In and of itself, exercise is terrible at causing weight loss.  

In Episode 11: Bodies Come in All Shapes and Sizes, Geof and Todd discuss how humans come in all shapes and sizes, how everyone responds so differently to the same exact diet and exercise routine, why it is so important to find exercises you like and foods you enjoy, that your diet and exercise preferences match your goals, and why you should only compare yourself to yourself.

In Episode 10: Trying to Get Something for Nothing, Geof and Todd discuss how the health & wellness industry is all too eager to sell you tips, tricks, and hacks to not only help you maximize the health of your diet and your workout efficiency but to get more than you proverbially paid for (put in the work for) by “tricking” your physiology.  More often than not these hacks do not work and if they do work in the short term tend to have very little translational benefit in long-term health.  For example, just because you burn more fat during a workout, doesn’t mean that you burned more fat during the other 23 hours of the day, the week, the month or the year.  Fat burning during a workout actually has very little to do with the amount of fat you burn over a 24 hour period and more to do with energy balance and carbohydrate consumption.

Eating healthy and staying/getting fit takes work and it takes effort.  There are no short-cuts.  You have to put in the work.  Nothing in life is free and neither is healthy eating or staying/getting fit.  Instead of trying to “hack” your physiology, Geof and Todd recommend redoubling your efforts to focus on what works: the fundamentals of health and wellness (i.e. eating fruits and veggies, exercising 30 – 60 minutes/day, eating at energy balance).  This advice may sound cliché, worn out, and ineffective but it works, provided you find a way to implement it into your life.  Instead of trying to “hack” our physiologies and get something for nothing, try focusing on making it easier to execute your health & wellness fundamentals on a day-to-day basis.

In Episode 09: Expecting Too Much Too Soon, Geof and Todd discuss how changing your body, whether that means losing weight, building muscle or eating healthier takes a long time and more effort than you probably expect it to take.  Marketers will sell you solutions that claim to get you to where you want to go within a matter of days and weeks when in reality it is more than likely going to take you months and years to reach your ultimate destination.  On the way to achieving your BIG goal it is prudent that you set multiple small goals along the way and to enjoy what you are doing to get there.  If you don’t enjoy the journey, you’ll never reach your destination.   Some parts of your journey are going “to suck” but by carefully planning, sticking to that plan, altering it when needed, and cutting yourself a break once in a while you can set realistic expectations and achieve them on a realistic timeline.

In Episode 08: Your Body Type Helps You Find Your Activity, Geof and Todd discuss how peoples' bodies come in all shapes and sizes, shapes and sizes that make certain sports and activities more conducive to one body type or another.

Some people aren't built for running while others probably won't be very good at powerlifting.  We suggest finding something you like (even if you aren't built for it) but at the same time taking into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of your particular body type.  Body type shouldn't be used as an excuse not to partake in a particular form of physical activity but it also shouldn't force you into a sport or activity that you don't even really like (i.e. you're tall so you feel like you should play basketball).

The point is, don't feel like you have to do a particular type of exercise.  Find activities that you enjoy, whether you are "built" for them or not.  The rest should fall into place.

*We had some audio difficulties while recording this pod but wanted to be able to get this content out to you because it still contains valuable information.