fat camp

[Mossdog]

I learned a while a go that it's so much easier not to put the calories in, in the first place, rather than try to exercise them off.

Most of my adult life Ive been lucky in that my weight has hovered between 75 kgs and 80kgs. As I've aged and my metabolism has slowed, coupled with periods of injury that have impacted on my ability to exercise at the level I enjoy, I've had to think more about food intake.

What works for me is a simple (if weird) mental exercise. If the piece of cake (or whatever) I'm being offered looks to be about 450 cals (or so), I mentally recall the amount of rowing/running effort it's going take to cancel that out and bring me right back to where I was before I started scoffing the cake!

It takes me about 35 mins of hard rowing to burn 450 cals or, on my local, out-the-back-door fell run that's 4 up hill miles or so. Consequently, if I say no thanks to the cake I'm already 'burned off'(deficit) 450 cals (hooray) and if I then also go and do the equivalent exercise too, that's 900 plus cals - quids-in! Ditto other none meal times offerings. That's in addition to the 2000-2500 cals we burn just by sitting still each day.

I know the logic is a bit wobbly,- no pun intended - but as I said it works for me. To be fair, it does help that I've never been a foodie and tend to like very simple veggie food ('fuel').