YOU CAN’T OUT EXERCISE A BAD DIET

Weight loss is probably the number 1 reason why people go to the gym or work with a personal trainer or a nutrition adviser.

I meet so many clients who tell me they train really hard 5 – 6 days a week but they are not getting the results they want.

I know exactly how they feel because I’ve been in the very same boat.

WHY???

I used to think that because I went for a 5 mile jog or went for a tough gym session I could eat anything I wanted.

And I did…

Now I know this is definitely not the case!

As the saying goes:

This point was highlighted to me on my recent (extended) holiday in Budapest.

Our original holiday was a 3 night city break.  Then Storm Emma hit Ireland with an unmerciful bang and our flight home on the Thursday was cancelled.  We couldn’t get a flight home until the Monday which meant an extra 4 nights in Budapest!!

After the initial panic (We had no clean clothes or cosmetics because lets face it, Ryan Air make sure you only pack the bare minimum) we settled back nicely into holiday mode.  We were totally chilled out and thoroughly enjoyed our break.

Budapest is a fantastic city, steeped in history and full of amazing architecture.  If you’ve never been I would highly recommend you check it out.

So back to my point…

When planning our trip we made sure to book a hotel with a gym because we wanted to get a workout done while we were there.  I know it probably sounds a bit boring but I was thinking about

DAMAGE CONTROL  😝

We didn’t do anything crazy, between 30 and 60 minutes every morning before breakfast.  The gym was very limited but I still managed to burn a minimum of 300 calories every time and I was happy with that.

We didn’t get a single taxi, bus, tram or train while we were there.

We walked

...and walked

...and walked some more 😂

It felt like we saw every street, plaza, road, side street, square and back alley in the city!!

We walked EVERYWHERE!!!

I was wearing my fitbit (of course 😜) so all our activity was tracked.

We walked around 20KM and burned 2,889 calories on average every day.

You’d think that with this extra activity along with the daily gym sessions we would have lost weight wouldn’t you??

IT WASN’T TO BE…

I gained 6lbs in the week 🙈

Here's the food bit 🍞🍟🍝🍜🍰🍸🍻

You see we were in holiday mode.

We were eating all around us.

Croissants for breakfast, Cakes for lunch, pizza and pasta for dinner, bottles of wine, glasses of beer, cocktails….  Oh and did I mention CAKE?!?!?!

Some of the highlights were...

Afternoon tea 👌

...afternoon tea take two 👐

Afternoon tea take three 😅

Hummus bar 😁

Enjoying a mulled wine wrapped up in cozy blankets ❤

Italian food 👍

Irish coffee and more cake 🍹

Glasses of beer 🍺

You get the picture.

We enjoyed every single minute of it.

THE BOTTOM LINE IS

No amount of exercise will change your shape or help you maintain a lean body if you consistently eat an unhealthy diet.

Professional athletes are the only type of people who can eat large amounts of high calorie foods and get away with it. This is because they exercise at high intensities for several hours per day.

We mere mortals who do a 60 minute gym session don’t even compare.  We simply don’t need the same amount of food as they do.

A professional cyclist doing a 100km ride might burn 3,000 calories for example while our gym session might burn around 500 calories.

Exercising a lot does not give you a free pass to eat whatever you want.

You can train extremely hard and get really fit, but if you don’t change your nutrition your body won’t change.

NUTRITION IS KEY 🔑

If you’re struggling to get the balance right why not give me a shout. As a Nutrition Adviser and Health and Wellness Coach, I’d be delighted to help in any way I can!!!!  Find me on Facebook or check out my blog, Be Well with Bernie where I share lots of recipes and nutrition advice.

Let me know what you think 🙋