Crunching Numbers

I'm back. I did ok out of town. Not the greatest - well not great at all come to think of it. I was on "vacation" ya know. So I have to get back to it hard this week. I did two work outs on Monday and got my run/walk in this morning. I was supposed to weigh in Mon, but for some reason didn't - or today. I will do it first thing in the morning. I better not see the big 1-8-0 again.

While I was out on my run this morning I started to think about things I've read over the years. Some people say you shouldn't or don't have to workout to lose weight. I'm not sure how I feel about that. If you just play the numbers game, calories in calories out, then I guess you wouldn't have to workout if you kept your calories in check.
BUT, you would have to workout to change your body. That butt won't get off your thighs by just losing weight and your "bye bye" arms won't firm up by just cutting calories. You HAVE TO WORKOUT to change your body.

But hold the phone for a second. There is a gray line here. I know from prior experience that working out may sometimes NOT work in your favor. I'm talking about the gigantic hunger monster that shows up the night of or day after a really hard, long workout. It's that monster that can't be satisfied and needs to eat everything in the house - including the house. I've met with this monster many times. The problem is you end up consuming MORE calories by feeding him than you would have if you hadn't worked out. Get it?

So say I burn 800 cals on a nice long bike ride. That's awesome right? Well, that night (or the next day) the hunger monster shows up and DEMANDS I eat and eat and eat. I end up eating an excess of 1000-1500cals (depending on the severity) and therefore not only counter acted my ride, but now have a nice surplus for my body to store as fat. So, the question being - Should you exercise? The answer is YES. The success will happen if you can control that hunger monster - if you're strong enough to beat him and not feed him. And guess what will happen, he'll feed off your fat! Hooray.

But I'm weak. And if you're weak like me here's a plan I've done many times (actually on accident) that will still make working out work for you when you DO feed the hunger monster.

Work out hard. Real hard. For three weeks if you can. 5-6 days a week, hour long sessions etc. Then, take a week off. What this does is, for the weeks you're working out you're building muscle and increasing your BMR. Sure you may be feeding the hunger monster too so you may not see the scale going down much (just don't let it go up). But the beauty lies in the fact that you've built up some nice muscles that now require MORE energy.

So the week off your body will be requiring more calories to fuel itself, yet you won't be famished from working out and thus your body will turn into a fat burning furnace - all the while keeping your calories in check. I used to do this all the time and had no idea why when I stopped working out I'd lose like 4-5lbs. Keep repeating this cycle. Of course if you can work out and tame the monster then you're probably too skinny to be reading this blog anyway. ;-)

So that's my take on working out.

You don't need to work out to lose weight.

But you do need to work out to change your physique and build muscle - which looks better than "skinny fat" any day of the week.