“How many calories do I need to burn off to eat a McDonalds?”
Absolutely none.
There has been a misconception in society for too long and frankly I am DONE with it! This assumption and portrayal that health is what you eat and how much you move….
That you must eat ‘just healthy food’ and ‘exercise 5x p/week, sweating in every session’ to be healthy 🙄
It’s not health babe, it’s meticulous control, it’s trying to perfect and prime your body, whilst feeling a huge amount of dissatisfaction, exhaustion, frustration and shockingly no amount of health.
But this wild association with health now causes many to believe they have to go to extremes to eat certain food, or follow excessive exercise to give themselves permission to eat certain food.
It’s ludicrous, unhealthy and actually gives our incredible bodies a huge disservice.
The amount of calories you burn in a gym session is negligible when we consider your total energy output for the day.
Your body uses more energy resting, but you also struggle to rest, because you feel guilty? You feel you must always be “on the go” because that’s healthy… But is it? Or is it a lack of trust in yourself, a lack of complete understanding, and some red flags in your food relationship where you seek validation from extreme exercise to allow yourself certain foods 👀
Exercise has far greater benefits to your body, your mind, your health than calorie burn, and for me, seeing someone track a workout on their watch is a bit of a red flag 🚩 you lose the connection back to your body, and associate your workout with "how much you have burnt”
Exercise becomes a weapon to use against food.
You go to the gym and “burn 500 calories” to make room for the pizza tonight, follow eating like a pigeon all day to “save space” and end up mindfully gauging the pizza, eating past fullness, waking up the next morning, feeling guilty and considering getting to the gym to “undo” it….
Trapped in a cycle of a poor relationship with exercise and nutrition.
Impacting you ever getting lasting change.
Associating food with a number, exercise with validation, lacking trust, confidence, and the recognition of what movement does for your body, how it adds value to your life, and the capabilities of your body.
Excessive exercise through this cycle, can impact hunger regulation and individuals can actually eat in excess of 400-500 calories a day MORE because of the dysregulation, the high stress, lack of rest.
The more you associate exercise with food and intertwine the two, the longer it will take you to get to a place of food freedom, body acceptance, healthy relationship with food, confidence in yourself, and in reality and lasting fat loss.
I have something for you, take a listen to the most recent episode of the Nutrition with Rebecca Podcast to begin acknowledging the benefits of exercise and breaking down the limiting beliefs you have to nurture both your food, and exercise relationship.
Listen Here 👇
I hope you enjoyed reading this, and as always if you have any questions please reach out.
Rebecca x
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