A tasteful experiment.

So going back to my previous post about balancing exercise and diet, here is a research article done by S.M. Willbond, M.A. Laviolette, K. Duval and E. Doucet, from the School of Human Kinetics in University of Ottawa.

The experiment has two things to measure:
1) To find out if people can accurately guess how much energy they are using
2) To find out if people can compensate the right amount of food for energy they used

Eight men and eight women, moderately active, normal weight, aged 20-35 years were randomly assigned into two independent variables of exercising a total amount of either 200kcal or 300kcal workouts on a treadmill. Afterwards, they would be asked to guess how much calories they expended and they would be asked to eat the same amount of calories they lost in the workout with food.

It was found between these two groups that they thought they expended more energy than they actually did. The 200kcal group estimated that they burned off 825kcal as an average, while the 300kcal group thought they burned off an average of 897kcal. That trend of overestimation of energy used in workouts followed over in the eating portion of the experiment. The 200kcal group averaged a consumption of 557kcal while the 300kcal group averaged consumption of 607kcal.

These findings suggest that most people overestimate how much energy they burned off when they exercise; as well as overestimating how much energy they’re taking in to match energy burned off after exercising. This is a problem for people who regularly exercise but don’t monitor their calorie intake. Overestimation of used energy is 3-4 times more than the actual loss in kcal, and 2-3 times more calories in food to match their own energy use.

The take home message for this is to make sure you know how much calories you’re actually burning compared to how much you’re eating if you want to maintain or lose weight. Remember! Working out for 30 minutes does not equal a Big Mac!

Reference:
The Journal of sports medicine and physical fitness
Vol/Issue: 50 (4), Date: Dec 2010, Pages: 377-384

Normal weight men and women overestimate exercise energy expenditure.
Authors: Willbond, S M; Laviolette, M A; Duval, K; Doucet, E

I’m physically active…now what?

Well this is just one step of being healthy, remember that health is more than just not being sick, but it also is the complete state of being able to grow as a person. There is no point in being physically active no matter how committed you are if you aren’t matching that up with a good diet. One thing I learned in my Kinesiology class so far is that my calorie intake has to match up to my energy use.

If you eat a McDonald’s meal weighing in at about 1000 calories thinking that you can burn it off at the gym later that day. In my experience burning even half of that in 30 minutes is already a task on the bike! Of course I’m not recommending eating at McDonald’s even if you CAN burn off its total amount in calories, you also have to remember that you’re getting most of those calories from fat!

Combining good habits in physical activity and diet will ultimately lead to healthy weight. A balance is required as well; obsession on diet may cause you to miss out on some nutrients. So basic rule of thumb to a completely healthy lifestyle is to have not too much, not too little.