Elizabeth Week 4: What Does Exercise Got to Do With It?

As I have mentioned previously, I am a long time athlete, not in that fitness buff kind of way, but in the sense that there hasn’t been a day gone by that I don’t participate in some kind of sport. As a teen, I played every sport imaginable and I still continue to ‘dabble’ from time to time. Most days, I wake up and play basketball with my son before he catches the bus, I run for 30 minutes while my daughter takes a nap, and then we go to the skate park where I skate board with my kids; so why am I still chunky, I wonder.

In my case, it’s really no big mystery. Although I stay active, I also stay hungry (scratch that — starving!). I have noticed that when I don’t get a ton of activity in during the day, I’m really not all that hungry; I even skip dinner a lot of days if I don’t do a lot of cardio. On top of that, I love food and have a huge appetite naturally, then you factor in my body’s hunger after exercising and I tend to binge eat. Or, a really stupid thing I catch myself doing is trying to limit way too many calories and I get so hungry that I will literally eat anything to keep from passing out.

This week, I really felt like I was ‘getting there’; I actually managed to eat smart for the most part. I had one slip, I ate 4 or 5 homemade cookies that my husband whipped up. Although that wasn’t good for my weight loss, I had a lot of fun pigging out with my best friend. To make up for it, I didn’t eat dinner and not because I was punishing myself, but because I recognized how full I was after and had no interest in eating.

I am finding that I no longer have any interest in breads and starchy foods — this makes it easier to stick to the low-carb lifestyle. Another change is that I have found myself becoming fuller and staying satisfied longer. I’ve actually gotten to the point where I can stop eating altogether much earlier (think 6-ish). In addition to eating better, I also increased my cardio and tried to work in some strength training.

Here’s some interesting things about exercising that I wanted to share with my readers, you may or may not already know this so bare with me. When you do cardio, you are burning calories during the exercise. Cardio is the best way to burn calories in a given time period while you are exercising. However, (this is the part I just found out in my 26 years of being an athlete) muscle burns more fat and calories than anything. Meaning, when you have a toned frame, you walk around with an internal fat torch, you’re also basically increasing your metabolism. I don’t mean big ole’ gawky body builder muscles either, just conditioning muscles and tone. That’s what I am going to work on now, getting some weight training in!