Last week I decided that I would not watch what I was eating all Thanksgiving weekend long. Everyone who knows me knows that I exercise daily and eat well too. The muscles I’ve built through my strength training over the years are well established and act as a great fat-burning mechanism in my body. But it’s not enough that I exercise daily, I must eat regularly and eat the right amounts and the right types of foods too. This is the magic combination I use to maintain my high fitness level. A three day long weekend was upon us and I was on a mission to see what impact it would have on my body if I didn’t control my eating over this period.
Day 1- I started off at 173 lbs in the morning and ended up at 178 lbs in the night. I exercised for an hour that day on an intense strength training routine.
Day 2- I started off at 1785.8 lbs in the morning and ended up at 178.3 lbs in the night. My diet this day included my first turkey dinner and all the fixings as well as wine to celebrate the occasion. I skipped desert as eating without limits that day seemed to upset my stomach. Earlier in the day, I had exercised for an hour on an intense strength training routine.
Day 3- I started off at 175.8 in the morning and ended up at 178.3 by night. Earlier in the day, I exercised for an hour on an intense strength training routine before heading out to my second turkey dinner which included more wine and minimal dessert. After dinner, I ventured on a 3 hour intense cycling trip which exceeded a distance of more than 30 kms!!!
This morning’s final weigh in arrived at 176 lbs! Despite more than 3 hours of intense strength training over 3 days and more than 3 hours of intense cycling, I still managed to put on 3.7 lbs just by not controlling my diet during this same period.
The moral of this story….. You can exercise well and frequently but you will not get the body you want unless you monitor and control your diet as well!!!
