You can't out exercise a bad diet

You Can't Out Exercise a Bad Diet

‘I did three classes today, so that means I can legitimately eat this piece of cake right?’

This is how I used to rationalise my excessive over eating behaviours. Except that what I failed to recognise, was the abnormally large bowl of cheesy pasta I had eaten for dinner, the crackers I had snacked on whilst preparing it and the ice cream I had scoffed down after lunch. So yes… I could very easily eat that piece of cake. But I couldn’t have the cake, everything else and the body I ‘deserved’ considering the amount of exercise I was doing.

It’s a well-known saying that you can’t out exercise a bad diet and I was very much demonstrating the definition of this.  Despite exercising multiple times a day, my overly excessive calorie consumption meant all my efforts jumping around and sweating were, in essence, pointless for my weight loss goals.

I said in my last post I made the ultimate decision to sort out my bad eating habits in June, well I kind of started sowing the seeds a little bit earlier than that – maybe April time. I figured that if I cut down on the amount I was eating and made better, more nutritious choices, I would start to see result in a positive direction. So that’s what I did. I carried on teaching group exercise classes most days, eating less and I did indeed notice some small, positive changes in my body composition.

However, progress was super slow and it was difficult to keep motivated when I was seeing such little return. Whilst I loved, and felt safe in the comfort of my studio, group exercise classes weren’t helping me to achieve my goals at the rate I needed and I was starting to lose the love for it and it became a chore. Finally, those words so many instructors had spoken to me, ‘teaching classes is a workout for your participants, it is not your own training,’ rang true. If I wanted to see my own results, I had to go back to where I had spent so much time all those years ago. I had to face up to the gym…