People Would Rather Work Out Harder Than Change How They Eat

I did this for years. I thought that the harder my workouts were, the more weight I would lose. I had a personal trainer in NYC who told me to try not drinking alcohol for awhile. I laughed at him. I wasn't about to not drink! It was my everyday. It was the way I coped with stress. It was the way I relaxed. It took the edge off. Well having the munchies all the time didn't help either ;)

On a regular basis, I look around at the gym and see the same people doing their same workouts early in the morning year after year without a single change to their bodies. Some of these people probably do this as part of their routine and don't mind that they don't see physical change. But I don't get it. If I'm waking up early and working hard at something, I want to see some results.

As I learn things by experience, I realized that I wasn't actually burning more calories when I did a harder level on the stair master. When I started to get serious about burning calories by pushing myself to the point of being out of breath every time I did cardio I realized that this wasn't working the way I thought it did.  I wore a heart rate monitor and saw that if I stayed within my target heart rate of 65-85% then I would burn more calories than if I went above it. This is when it clicked for me. I then started to log my food on a daily basis and that is how I really saw a lowering of fat loss.

*Interval training is a great way to burn calories. Short bursts of intensity (being out of breath) shocks the system. Try 1 minute sprints of 7, 8 or 9.0 on the treadmill followed by 2 minute walks at 3.7 or 4.0 for 3-5 sprints in all. Or do a similar workout on an elliptical or bike. This will boost your metabolism.

So here's my advice. If you find that you fall into this category of working out harder when you want to see physical change and you don't see it, start to write down what you eat on a daily basis for 2 weeks. Just for 2 weeks. You can email it to yourself, create a notes page on your phone or write it down with a pen. Logging your food will probably be THE most eye-opening thing that you can do to reach your goals. I've been logging my food now for 3 weeks and I've lost 4 pounds. The real work is the accountability. It's hard, but it's smart.

Abs are made in the kitchen.