Are your workouts being Devoured up by eating too many sweets?

It’s about a healthy lifestyle!

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Are your workouts being Devoured up by eating too many sweets?

19 December 2008 One Comment

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been participating in the Big Fat Holiday Fitness Challenge over at DC Urban Dad. The first weekend, I did great; I added 75 points in only three days. This week was great as far as my workouts were concerned, especially with my 10K on Saturday and the bike ride I took on Sunday. But then during the week I ate: 1 piece of cake, 1 cookie, and 1 pastry. So my pain and the gain were killed by my sweet tooth.

Therefore, I discovered the hard truth about the point system, which not surprisingly equates to many weighty issues.

For these examples, I’ll be referencing the point system Mark came up with for this challenge:

Everyone starts with 100 points:

Each time you workout (must be at least 20 minutes) = add an extra 20 points
If you work out more than 3 times in a week = add extra 15 points
Each piece of fruit (apple, banana, grapes, etc.) = add an extra 1 point
Fresh vegetables each day = add an extra 5 points
Each 8-ounce glass of water = add an extra 2 points
Each piece of candy or cookie = takeaway 5 points
Each sugared soda = takeaway 5 points
Ice Cream or Fancy coffee drinks (Non-Skinny ones don’t count) = takeaway 10 points
Each piece of cake or pie = takeaway 15 points
Breakfast, lunch or dinner at a fast food joint = takeaway 15 points

If you take at my statistics:

1 workout = +15 points, but 1 piece of cake = -15 points. As I pondered this unfortunate equanimity, my first reaction was, “Hey, that’s not fair.” Upon further introspection I realized that:

1 average 20 minute workout (at least for me) = 213 calories expended

And

1 average piece of cake (even without the frosting) = 245 calories ingested

The bottom line:

20 minutes worth of a workout will be erased with one piece of cake.

Here’s another example:

If I drink 3 glasses of water in a day (which isn’t really too hard) = +6 points, but, eating one cookie, which = -5 points, just dropped my gain to 1 lousy point.

For the rest of this month, I’m swearing off sweets. Yes, you heard it here. The Queen of Sweet Tooth won’t be having anymore for at least the next 3 weeks. I have zero intention of continuing to lose my workout gains from a lack of willpower for cake.

What about you? Are your workouts being eaten up by sweets?

I’m going to find out how much more weight I lose just by giving up sweets. I know the holidays aren’t the best time to start a new personal healthy initiative, but there’s no time like the present, to shine now, because

After all, it’s about a healthy lifestyle!

Photo courtesy of jslander

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One Comment »

Evita said:

Hi - what a great system!

I think this is so valuable for people because many of them do not realize just how much damage any kind of “junk food” does to the body. This on the other hand is a quick way to see that yeah one may be exercising and doing all this grea stuff and then cancelling it all out with the unnecessary items (junk) they put in their body!

As for the “sweet tooth” phenomenon, I think many of us really don’t realize how addicting sugar is, I know I didn’t. Today I am living sugar free and have never felt better…no cheating, no once a week breaks, nothing like that because I know so much that it benefits my body ZERO and in turn just causes damage. I was doing good with my own research but then read Dr. Olson’s book Sugarettes (you can find a review of this on Evolving Wellness) and have never looked back at sugar since. He is holding a 30 day sugar free challenge too on his site if you are interested.

Anyhow thank you too for stopping by Evolving Beings and for your very much appreciated feedback!

Enjoy your holidays
Evitas last blog post..Review: Jason Healthy Mouth Tea Tree Natural Toothpaste