Do you eat to workout or workout to eat?

It looks like little Gynnie hath wormed her way into my head with her comment, "It's worth it to me to do that extra exercise so I can eat what I want and not think about it," which I blogged about on Friday. Then, I saw this over at FitSugar.com and thought, hey, that little blonde minx may be onto something! (Gwyneth, not FitSugar).

As for me, I'm an unabashed endorphin whore and gym junkie and am obsessed with the feeling I get from working up a long, hard sweat. And I was recently reminded of another reason I exercise - to stay healthy and strong - when my sister-in-law's friend's grandmother (got that?) fell and broke her hip while walking into a hospital (to visit my newly birthed niece.) But there's another, slightly less purehearted/more sinister motivation behind my workouts - Me Want Food.

On days I don't workout, I tend to eat a bit lighter (not *dieting* in any sense - just making healthier choices.) But on a day like yesterday, when the Red Tent is about pitch itself in my family room for five to seven days and my meal plan looks something (OK, exactly) like this:

Fresh fruit from Edible Arrangements (I'm not even playing here - they sent me this and I had a happy freakout on par with the day I got engaged) Heaping bowl of oatmeal with dried blueberries and brown sugar Large slice of semi-frozen, heavily frosted birthday cake Two teeny pieces of broccol left languishing in my fridge Two (and a half) monstrous slices of stuffed deep-dish pizza

...well, let's just say that on those kind of days, I'm mighty glad I walked 30 minutes to the gym, did another 30 on the Gauntlet, lifted some light weights and walked back home.

So, I ask you...

PS PRIZE ALERT Would Cebca, Bdaiss and Meg please email me at leslie@lrdiaries.com? Something fun from lucy awaits you! Answers to your questions to come...

Comments

I did work out for a while - I'm still in the Losing Weigh phase of my life - but I discovered, honestly, that I lost weight faster by eating healthier and NOT working out as much. Probably muscle build, but really, when you're 80 pounds overweight, no one cares how much muscle you have ;-)

I walk about 10 miles a week, and do some sort of 'activity' once a week, but that's it. When I was doing aerobics and weight lifting 5 times a week in addition to walking, I was losing like .2 or .4 pounds a week, discouraging enough to consider the "heck with it" approach to my life. When I stopped working out for a few weeks to let me shin splint heal, I actually started losing 2 and 3 pounds.

So, I never quite had the motivation to get back to heavy workouts.

Oh...the workouts. I love working out. But I have to get up at 5 am now to do it. Did you know it's still dark at 5 am most of the year? And I hate the treadmill to nowhere. Given my choice, I'd opt for playing ice hockey 4 days a week. But that's not feasible in the middle of nowhere. But that's really not what you asked.

I work out so I can eat some of what I want. I definitely can't eat whatever I want, no matter how much I workout. 'Cuz then I'd still be way overweight and diabetic. So how 'bout "Um, duh! My daily workout lets me have a small daily treat, and every once and awhile a big ol' chili dog, without feeling guilty." : )

I workout everyday. Is it so I can eat whatever I want? Well, I'm still trying to lose about 15 pounds of post-divorce weight gain. By the way, I managed to gain that weight while training for a half marathon, so I was eating LOTS of whatever I wanted. So I easily maintain my weight now, which is on the higher end of a my healthy range, but still need to work on the nighttime eating whatever I want thing. Food and Guilt, Guilt and Food, they go together like Guilt and Religon, but luckily I don't have that problem :)

I do tend to eat less if I don't work out, however I don't work out so I can eat. Then again, I'm disordered so I just work out to burn calories.

I've tricked myself into genuinely liking both eating healthily and working out, and even my 2 main vices (a glass of red wine and a half-serving of rich dark chocolate) have antioxidants. I've accepted that this both makes me a freak and gives people a damn good reason to hate me.

When I had to stop working out as much due to injury, I found that I also had to stop eating the way I wanted - life was so very sad.

But - now that I'm working out again, I can have that 3rd piece of pizza and not worry. Life is much happier when I can exercise and earn that beer.

Before I overhauled my diet, working out did more-or-less allow me to eat the icky junk food that I wanted and maintain my weight. . . a fact to which I was rudely awakened when I stopped working out while continuing to eat the way I was, resulting in a gain of 10 lbs. Now that I've cut way down on the bad stuff and settled into what I anticipate will be a life-long love affair with fresh fruits and veggies and whole grains and monosaturated fats, though, my newly skinny self needs both the health-conscious diet and hard core exercise together to maintain the lower weight. It's one of the sad ironies of weight loss that the smaller you get, the fewer calories you need to get by, thus the less you can eat/more you have to exercise to keep it going.

But I guess I'm like Tricia. It's not so bad when you find yourself able to indulge in foods that are both good for your body and for your taste buds.

Uhm, Tricia, I need your secret. :)

About a year ago I BURNED OUT on exercise. I was coaching track at school, taking Bikram yoga classes 4 times a week, biking every weekend. And one day...I just got sick of it. I'm trying to get myself back in the swing of it now, but I've gone from being crazy active to forcing myself to go for a 20 minute walk a couple times week.

Have adjusted diet accordingly, so luckily my weight doesn't bother me too much. But reading Leslie's food journal from yesterday just made me HUNGRY!!

I actually eat less and better when I do workout. If I'm not, I eat like crap. Well, relative crap, not Standard American Diet crap.

I think, if I've put in my time sweating, then I think, no way am I eating that cookie and wasting all that effort, where if I sat on the computer all day, then why shouldn't I have that cookie, it's not going to matter much.

BUT when I was young, and my mom told me that eventually my weight would "catch up with me," I always told her then I would just exercise more to make up for it. So, I understand the sentiment.

And I'm so jealous of the Edible Arrangements, because I think I actually told my husband (who has SUCKED at birthdays for several years) that he should get me one of those (although the one I wanted definitely involved chocolate covered strawberries) for my birthday this year or he was not getting any for a very long time. And my birthday came and went, and not only did I not have one of those, but I did not have any form of birthday cake AT ALL as I turned the big 3-0!

Yes, I'm bitter.

I totally used to workout so I could eat more, but then I got a point where I thought I don't want to be a gym rat the rest of my life just so I can feel less guilty about what I eat. So, now it's about balance and moderation for both food and exercise to the point where it's how I just live versus feeling like I have to "work".

I'm pretty sure even running a marathon a day wouldn't burn off as much as I'd LIKE to eat if I could!

Hence I don't work out for food reasons, but exercising as much as I do stops me from beating myself up about the odd sugar/carbfest when it inevitably happens. And it means that I enjoy food more, because I'm not forever feeling guilty about it. Like you though, I tend to eat less on days when I don't work out.

If I'm really serious about losing weight I tend to work out less, because it stops me from getting so hungry in the first place!

TA x

Im a same'er and tend to eat the same amount whether I workout or not.
I think because Ive convinced myself that my muscles are GROWING on my days off and if I ate lighter theyd no have fuel?

I think I have "heavy" genes because I can work out like a freakin' maniac for hours a day, eat lightly and still gain weight. Although like many of the previous commenters, I do find I eat more when working out hard. Anyhow, I get depressed if I focus too much on the weight/workouts so now I just workout because I L-O-V-E it. Ah, the endorphins....

And, for the record, I think Gwynnie is full of crap - er goop - because I've heard her say so many contradictory things about her diet and workout. Her mom is freaking Blythe Danner - why can't she just admit she won the genetic lottery?

It so sucks that I have to do both. When I worked out a lot and didn't pay close attention to my diet, I gained weight. I do eat more when I workout but I typically eat a lot less than I burn. On my rest days, I eat less because I don't have to get up so early (less hours awake, less time to stuff my face) and I'm just not as hungry.

I do both. But I'm tinkering around with this new gadget, the Body Bugg. My friend from high school has been using with with GREAT results. You wear it on your arm and it measures all the calories you burn in a day. Then I sync it up with my computer, log in what I ate and, if I work at a deficit, I lose weight. Its more challenging than it sounds but it does work. Then when you're at the weight you want to maintain, you start eating as many calories as you're burning. I lost 4 pounds my first week...
And I SWEAR by the 30 Day Shred DVD by Jillian Michaels. Its the BEST (only) 20 minute workout I've had since I was an athlete in college. No joke. And I can't make excuses about not doing it, 'cuse who doesn't have 20 minutes to work out?

why is food considered a prize?

I used to workout to eat more.

But I love to workout. Seriously, nothing feels as good as a nice bike ride or a successful run. And the stress relief I get from exercise is ten fold the stress relief I get from eating for comfort.

I do love to eat, don't get me wrong, and working out does eschew the guilt of my indulgences, but right now I can't say I'm working out to eat more.

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