No amount of exercise can change your figure or help you maintain a lean body if you eat a consistently unhealthy diet. Trust me, I’ve tried. You can train super hard and get really fit, but if you don’t change your nutrition, your body won’t change. Over the year, lots of people have asked me questions about why you can’t out train a bad diet so I thought I would explain why this is so.
When you were in your teens and even early 20’s, you may have been able to get away with eating poorly and doing little exercise and still remaining slim. Unfortunately this doesn’t last for most people. As you age, your metabolism slows down meaning you’ll burn less and less calories each day. Strength training becomes more important as you get older because it will help increase your metabolism, as well as help with many other factors associated with aging!
Athletes are about the only type of people who can eat large quantities of high calorie foods and get away with it. This is because they exercise at high intensities for several hours per day. Your HIIT workout, crossfit session or run doesn’t even compare, and you don’t need the same amount of food as they do. For example, a cyclist doing a 100km ride might burn 2,000-3,000 calories. A crossfit session might burn around 500 calories. Exercising a lot does not give you a free pass to eat whatever you want.
If you’re eating the wrong type of foods, it will be harder for you to train at your best. You need to the right amount and right type of foods to be able to exercise at high intensities, and also to change your body. To find out what body type you are and what type of foods you should be eating according to your body type, read my blog post here.
I know that when I’m eating poorly, I feel MUCH less motivated to exercise and it kind of spirals from there. When you eat bad, you don’t want to exercise, and when you don’t exercise, you make worse food choices. But when you eat well, you feel good, full of energy and actually want to do your workouts. They go hand in hand.
I know how important nutrition is, which is why all of my eBooks include an 8 week nutrition plan with recipes. So if you’re looking for a workout AND nutrition program that is actually doable and easy to maintain, then my eBooks might be for you. Read more about them here xx