At my first kettlebell certification in 2008—back in the “old days” when there was a bit more of a hard-core mentality in addition to the educational component—two guys were selected on the final day to take part in a “demonstration”.
One guy was given a brown paper bag which contained a single jelly-filled, sugar-covered donut. The other was given a 24-kg kettlebell. The first guy’s task was to eat the donut. The second guy’s task was to snatch the kettlebell—not an easy task after more than two 9-hour days of technical kettlebell practice & workouts—until the first guy finished the donut.
You’d think that the first guy got the better end of that stick, but I’m not sure that was the case. Not only did he shovel the donut down the hatch as fast as he could so that the other poor sucker could stop snatching, but he also had to get back to training along with the rest of us after the “demonstration”… with a donut sitting in his gut. So in reality, I think we spectators got the best end of that stick.
Anyway, after the tasks were complete one of the certification instructors was asked how many calories he thought the second guy burned while snatching. This instructor happened to have an advanced degree in exercise physiology and had worked with some Olympic athletes in Denmark, so he had some relevant expertise.
He asked a couple questions about the snatcher’s height and weight; did some quick, back-of-the-napkin calculations; and came up with a fairly small number. I don’t remember what it was exactly, but I do remember that it was less than 100 calories.
Then he was asked how many calories he thought the donut provided. His answer was in the 350-calorie range.
And that’s when their point was made…
You can’t out-snatch a donut
In other words, you can’t exercise your way to better results if you don’t also actively work to improve your diet.
This doesn’t mean that your diet needs to be perfect (or even “good”, for that matter). It simply means that you need to nudge your diet in the right direction for your individual goals in order to achieve them.
In fact, I’ve observed over the past 13 years of coaching that three factors seem to be the most significant in derailing results:
- Not getting enough sleep
- Experiencing too much stress without having reasonable habits to manage it
- Believing that exercise can take the place of or make up for not improving dietary habits
In future tips, I’ll offer some suggestions for improving the first two factors above. For now, here are two fairly simple practices that you can implement in order to work on that third factor.
Putting it into practice
If you can’t out-exercise a suboptimal diet, then what does exercise actually do? The simple answer is that intentional and progressive exercise improves your ability to do stuff.
In this case, “stuff” means everything from getting out of bed to carrying groceries to playing with your kids/grandkids/pets to participating in active hobbies (e.g. playing sports, dancing, gardening).
And “intentional and progressive exercise” means following an ever-so-gradually-more-challenging exercise plan that improves your mobility, stability, strength, or cardiovascular endurance, to keep the categories simple. These are the physical characteristics that make “doing stuff” easier.
Will you expend some energy (i.e. calories) doing this exercise? Certainly! But that should be a by-product of the exercise as opposed to the main purpose.
Practice #1:
On a sheet of paper, write down a few physical characteristics that would make doing a specific activity easier or more enjoyable, along with the specific activity. For example:
- Being stronger would make carrying groceries easier
- Being faster would make playing softball more enjoyable
- Being more stable (i.e. having better balance) would improve my dancing ability or confidence walking outside during bad weather
Now put that sheet of paper somewhere that you’ll see it before doing any intentional exercise. There will always be alternative benefits to the exercise that you do. But if you find that you’re regularly exercising for a reason other than what’s listed on that sheet of paper or if the exercise doesn’t seem to be producing those results, then it might be time to re-evaluate your training program (or to hire a coach to help you do so).
Practice #2:
A simple way to improve your nutrition with minimal effort is to use the “traffic light” system to determine which specific foods or categories of foods work best for you.
Green light foods are foods that:
- You like and digest well
- Support your goals (e.g. non-starchy veggies are nutrient-dense & calorie-sparse and can help with losing weight; nuts & seeds are nutrient- and calorie-dense and can help with gaining weight/muscle)
- You can easily stop eating when you’re satisfied
Yellow light foods are foods that:
- You somewhat enjoy and/or digest OK sometimes
- May or may not support your goals
- You sometimes struggle to stop eating when you’re satisfied
Red light foods are foods that:
- You dislike or do not digest well (i.e. they often produce heartburn, etc.)
- Do not support your goals (e.g. nuts & seeds are healthy yet calorie-dense and may be easy to overeat thereby preventing weight-loss)
- You often are unable to stop eating even when you’re satisfied or not hungry in the first place
Again, make a list. Write down some examples of foods in each category. Then make a habit of having your specific “green light” and perhaps “yellow light” foods in abundance and within arms’ reach while leaving your “red light” foods on the shelf at the store.
We all tend to eat what is more readily available to us—yes, trainers too(!)—so having more “green light” foods around the house and fewer “red light” foods available is one of the easiest ways to improve our diets.