Growing up on a farm in regional NSW, there were a few thing that really stick in my mind –
Epic adventures with my good mate on my trusty trike,
Pulling fire weed and
Bonfires.
Each of these are a story in themselves, but as a kid bonfires on cracker night are one of those all time things that can go really bad or really good.
From building the bonfire for weeks before, to buying the crackers (when you could buy crackers at the local supermarket) to the big night. Each of these are vivid memories in my mind.
And then the cleanup the morning after.
From weeks of collecting timber and building and building then then next day…nothing. Just a few half burnt logs, lots of ash and loads of empty cracker tubes and wire sparklers.
So the idea of exercising to burn calories or energy to lose weight seems logical on the surface and is certainly what we have been told for years. Even decades in fact.
But in my opinion this is not the best way to go about it.
Certainly as we move we use energy. The more we move the more energy we use. And so to exercise, or move alot means we should use more energy.
If you can use more energy than you can eat that should mean a loss. And to keep exercising that should mean that loss continues.
And yes this does happen, Im sure you have done it before, but its not that straight forward.
The idea that we should exercise to reduce weight really only applies to professional athletes who are constantly doing a massive amount of exercise on most days and so they are burning an enormous amount of calories and so they generally lose lost of weight and keep it of. (While they are training that is.)
But this doesn’t apply to you and I the average person.
A better approach is to –
look at calories stored against calories burnt
If you look at the foods you eat against how you exercise and how you produce/store body fat and then use this as energy this is a much better approach to reducing weight.
Most of us eat a standard modern day diet which is high in carbohydrates – grains (eg bread, cereal, pasta, etc) sugar (eg soft drinks, ice cream etc) and processed foods.
When we eat carbohydrates our body breaks it down into various nutrients one is glucose which we use for energy.
If your body is getting most of its energy from carbohydrates, generally speaking you burn a small amount of glucose, store a small amount in our muscles and liver and stored the rest as fat. So when your body use this small amount of glucose you then need to eat more carbohydrates for more energy and to store more fat…and the cycle continues.
A high carbohydrate diet results in you body producing excessive amounts of insulin to transport the glucose around your body and then locks off your fat stores and can lead to a raft of lifestyle diseases
But there is another way
If you eliminate foods such as grains and sugar and processed foods and focus on low healthy carbohydrate, medium protein, high healthy fat foods such as meat, fish, vegetables, eggs, fruit, nuts, seeds, avocado & coconut products over time you are able to re-program your body, your genes to burn fat as your main fuel rather carbohydrate or glucose as your main fuel.
This is much healthier way to eat and a far better way to loose weight and keep it off for life.
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