Exercise is more than swEating calories

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This article was published 23/09/2017 (3220 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Frozen margarita, anyone? A calorie-counting app will tell you a 12-ounce margarita contains between 650 and 700 calories; for a 150-pound person, that would equal about 60 minutes of spinning at a moderate effort.

Although it can be fun — and sometimes shocking — to match unhealthy foods with their “exercise cost,” does that information encourage healthier behaviour?

When personal-training clients come in for consultations, they cite weight loss as a top priority, says Cassia Denton, a personal training director at Balance Gym in Washington, D.C. Comparing calories in and calories out can work, but not when the equivalent to those Boardwalk fries is 14 hours of brisk walking. She tells clients that at least 80 per cent of weight loss is about nutrition and 20 per cent is training. “As the tried-and-true saying goes, ‘bodies are made in the kitchen.’”

And that 20 per cent should not just be cardio (which is usually emphasized when it comes to exercise equivalents), but strength, too. The more lean body mass — muscle — you have, the higher your basic metabolic rate, Denton says. In other words, a 150-pound person with high fat will burn less than a 150-pound person with a higher ratio of lean body mass.

“The contribution to weight loss from exercise is minimal,” says Scott Kahan, a Washington weight-loss doctor and director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness, adding he still sees value in exercise equivalents as a way to put food into perspective.

“Any access to data about the caloric load of what you are going to eat in restaurants and elsewhere is of value,” Kahan says. “Exercise equivalents can help contextualize, which is useful.”

Many people don’t realize how much harder it is to burn calories than consume them, Denton says. “People tend to overestimate the energy they expend when they exercise and underestimate the calories they consume.”

Breaking down actual numbers can provide a reality check.

According to AthleteInMe.com’s Exercise Calorie Converter, an In-N-Out-Burger meal at 1,180 calories is the exercise equivalent of 208 min-utes of walking, 132 minutes of spinning, 116 minutes of swimming or 83 minutes of jogging.

“When you present it that way, it shocks people,” says Stan Reents, author, health coach and chief executive of AthleteInMe.com. “And we know that if you want to change human behaviour, you have to create an emotional response.”

Eating and exercising, says Claire Mysko, CEO of the National Eating Disorders Association, should not be about numbers that potentially invite shame and punishment spirals. “Getting into the numbers game can become very unhealthy,” she says. Food, along with giving you energy, is also about getting the right amount of vitamins, minerals, protein, fat and other essential nutrients for good health.

And on the flip side, exercise is about so much more than countering calories consumed.

Says Kahan: “There are so many benefits to exercising, including mind, mood, joints, feeling good, sleeping better.”

— Special to the Washington Post