After a recent group hike, several of us stopped on the way home to get something to eat. One of the hikers ordered what seemed like everything that was on the menu. By the way, this person stands to lose about 20 pounds. After devouring everything in sight. He looked over at me and said quite proudly, “I worked really hard today, I deserved that!”
Really?
What has happened to us that we justify behavior like this? Certainly, someone who is not overweight has a little more room to indulge than those who are struggling. But to feel that they “deserve” to eat in a way that is going to keep adding on to their waistline is just mind-boggling.
If your goals include weight loss, then you’re not going to lose weight while you’re in the gym. Don’t get me wrong cardio workouts will burn calories. But true weight loss is going to occur once you change how and what you put in your mouth.
Burning calories is calculated by the activity and weight of the person. For instance, if you are 150 lbs and run a 10-minute mile then you are going to burn 113 calories per mile. 113 calories per mile?!?! So if you run 5 miles then you’ve burnt 565 calories. Eat a big meal afterward? And you guessed it. You just evened out. So it really doesn’t create a deficit in your calorie count if you continue to eat large amounts of food.
If you are going to eat like a king after a hard workout, don’t fool yourself by thinking that you “deserve it”. Instead, enjoy your meal and open your belt buckle another notch because you have done NOTHING to create the deficit you need.
What about you? Have you made silly excuses in order to justify “silly” behavior?
For more Health & Fitness information please visit our ongoing blog at