Will Exercise For Tasties!

koalathebear wrote: »

I definitely let myself eat more if I exercise more .. I didn't realise it was considered unhealthy to "reward" yourself with food.

May just be me but if someone is trying to lose or maintain weight why would one want to reward themselves with food, seems very counterproductive. Sure if you move more due to exercise, eat additional calories to maintain your weight or maintain your desired rate of loss. However, associating food with reward doesn't seem to be a strategy for long term success.

kshama2001 wrote: »

koalathebear wrote: »

Theoldguy1 wrote: »

koalathebear wrote: »

I definitely let myself eat more if I exercise more .. I didn't realise it was considered unhealthy to "reward" yourself with food.

May just be me but if someone is trying to lose or maintain weight why would one want to reward themselves with food, seems very counterproductive. Sure if you move more due to exercise, eat additional calories to maintain your weight or maintain your desired rate of loss. However, associating food with reward doesn't seem to be a strategy for long term success.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree. As someone who loves food, I don't think it would have been sustainable for me to stick with 1200 calories during my weight loss phase. I needed to boost my calorie budget with exercise. Some people can lose weight on lowering calories alone but others might not be able to do that. I think it's about finding the right mix that is appropriate for each individual. In the case of the OP, the exercise may be excessive because it results in binge eating/OP spends more time exercising and eating than doing other things ... but that doesn't mean that using food as a motivator is a bad thing per se...

Amen!

I think the unhealthiness would be tied to the mindset. Your mindset is perfectly reasonable.

Exactly. If there's a problem, it's not likely to be the exercise per se (large amounts are physically viable if you build up to them, though there are limits - pretty high ones, for healthy people), and it's not likely to be the fueling of that exercise (with a sensible overall calorie deficit, or at maintenance).

The problem is if, psychologically, there's a desperation to exercise heavily to "make up for" over-eating, when lacking any other personal reasons to want to exercise ("sin and expiation" model); or a habit of exercising so much that overall positive life balance** is seriously compromised, pretty much entirely to lose weight faster or enable eating more while losing (potentially diagnosable as exercise bulimia, which doesn't require purging food to be a diagnosis).

** By life balance, of course, I mean adequate time and energy for the other things that are (or in some extreme cases, should be) important to the person, such as a job, social connections (family or otherwise), adequacy with essential daily life chores, perhaps non-exercise hobbies, perhaps spirtual practice, etc.

Of course it's possible to over-exercise to the point of physical breakdown and health compromise, but a lot of people underestimate how large an amount of exercise that may be, if one builds up to it sensibly (trains for it), because of the remarkably inactive lives many people lead these days (and I'm referring here mostly to occupational activity level differences now vs. history , not simply/exclusively intentional exercise for its own sake: Both create phyical stresses, and require fuel.)

pjwrt wrote: »

In my case, it was a devastating thing. There aren't any good comparisons because we're talking food energy (calories) and exercise. Maybe a smoker who jogs in order to award his sorry self with a cigarette?

Everyone is different. Everyone. I'd feel foolish saying what's right for me is right for anyone. But, eat healthy, eat less. gotta go

I'm sorry it was so hard for you. But as you say everyone is different. I don't think the analogy is quite right though - smoking is unequivocally bad for you. Heroin is bad for you. Food is not inherently good or bad.

And I totally get that for some people the relationship to food is very complex and it is literally an addiction.

The fact you can't live without it. I think the problem isn't food or exercise, it's the mindset and self-control. You've mentioned a self-admitted problem that you use excessive exercise to justify binging. That's not a good thing and I understand that.

It's quite different from saying that one can use exercise to boost a calorie budget/achieve a deficit. In relation to "eat healthy eat less" - I don't think that's complete. I'd say it's: "eat healthy, move more". If you're not going to move, then eat less.

It's not easy. I have a complicated relationship with food like many people here. But I love it and I've learned to find exercise I enjoy so that I can eat more. As I've mentioned, on the days I can't exercise - I eat less and I also weigh up whether eating x food is worth the exercise I'd have to do to offset it ...

ETA: I hope you can come to a happy balance ...