Today: I maintained the integrity of my maintenance calorie budget, I remained refined sugar-free, I exceeded my daily water goal, and I stayed well connected with good support.
Some notes from a good day- It was a very short night of rest before a longer than expected work day. I made sure to make a late afternoon nap important. My two grandsons, Noah and Oliver stopped by on their way to the carnival. Noah was super excited! Noah's enthusiasm for life is incredibly inspiring--everything is exciting to him! I attended and made the opening announcements for a concert hosted by our local arts and humanities board of directors, of which I'm a member. I dined out alone this evening--it was chicken tacos at my favorite Mexican place, grabbed a few things at Walmart and enjoyed a nice visit with mom. Actor James Marsden was on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Mom was super excited because Mr. Marsden's hometown is ours--and Colbert made the segment all about Stillwater. It was very cool!
One of the questions I'm asked quite often: Should I add extra calories to my daily budget in consideration for exercise calories burned?
I don't recommend adding calories to your budget for exercise unless you're training for the Olympics or for a marathon or something else that requires intensive training.
The most important thing is maintaining the integrity of your calorie budget. If you violate your budget in exchange for exercise, then you run the risk of stunting the growth and evolution of your food plan. You also set yourself up for a constant tug of war between food and exercise. Adding calories in exchange for exercise calories burned is a recipe for making this process miserable.
The only exception is if your exercise calories burned brings your net calories below 1,200-- in that case, it's a good idea to add at least enough to bring you to 1,200 net. If you're eating a generous 1,800 calorie budget and you burned 700 calories, your net calories check in at 1,100. Instead of adding back hundreds of extra calories, add 100 to bring your net to a minimum of 1,200.
By the way, this isn't my formula or creation--I learned this from several different nutrition and fitness experts. The opinion isn't just mine. MFP does calorie budget calculations that ultimately confuse many people. My best advice: Ignore the suggested "adjustments" and maintain your budget.
Micheal Phelps eats 10,000 calories a day when he's training. But he's in the pool 8-10 hours swimming.
Can you see how, if you're allowed to violate your budget by adding more exercise, then the way to keep eating compulsively is to simply exercise more and more? When we do that, we're trying to find an out- a way to justify eating more than we need... and again, the result is, the perspective gets wonky- and the food plan never develops- never evolves, because it doesn't have to. It's here where we run the risk of falling into an over-exercising routine--and the biggest: We end up stunting our growth in the non-food/non-exercise areas because if we're able to constantly and consistently violate our calorie budget, we haven't a reason to develop accountability and support measures that are designed to help us practice a plan that doesn't involve compulsively over-eating.
This process is about changing perspectives and patterns of the past.
If the old perspectives and patterns brought us here, then clearly we must be willing to shift them if we want different results.
Today's featured Tweet:
I love cantaloupe, but it's always a roll of the dice- I feel it, make sure there's a little give, but not too much- then I lay the money down and hope it's a winner. I found one today! Best cantaloupe I've had in a while. Well worth the $1.18 bargain! #fruitcandy pic.twitter.com/yWlNRHjmg5— Sean Anderson (@SeanAAnderson) April 21, 2018
Thank you for reading and your continued support,
Strength,
Sean
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