| I started long distance walking this year, and nearly every time I see the calorie count I am reminded of the aphorism about not being able to outrun a bad diet. I think that’s bullshit, with a proviso. The provision is that you can’t outrun a bad diet by exercising a half hour a day. That 30 minutes is a number doctors settled on not to scare sedentary people into not starting an exercise program. You really need an hour or more a day. I’m trying to get my walk route down to 90 minutes, in prep for a half marathon next year. If I stop for a matcha at the halfway point, I’ve still burned well over twice what I consumed. If I get the smoothie still come out ahead. The real “secret” there is that when I watch TV I nibble. Not getting food on books is the only reason I don’t nibble when reading. What I’ve done in a 90 minute walk is to forestall eating more than one single thing in that ninety minutes. And lowered my stress level. Cortisol is the other killer here. Even before that the nearest good coffee shop was a mile away and my net calories were ~100. If I avoided a certain cream based beverage. For some people, banning prepared foods does a similar thing. Preparing a snack takes fifteen minutes instead of fifteen seconds. You just don’t have as much time in the day to stuff your face once the convenience is gone. The other aphorism is that you lose weight at the grocery store, which I do believe. If you come home with fruit instead of pie and chips you’ve already fought half the battle. |
If you dont care about health or improvment in things like strength stamina, then the "dont exercise it is waste" knee jerk response makes some sense. If you care about health, it does not at all.