Final point that I’m going to make as part of the WhatsApp conversation I shared with my mate a couple of days ago……..
How many calories his smart watch reckoned he’d burned playing Padel.
It was well over a thousand.
In 90 minutes admittedly.
So about 800 an hour.
I disputed that.
As I do the vast majority of claims about the calorie burning effectiveness of exercise.
My Facebook feed is fairly regularly filled with adverts for workouts that claim to “scorch” thousands of calories.
Numbers nearly always being, shall we say, optimistic.
Maybe the very top end of what some study has shown that some people can do doing that particular activity.
But probably not what the vast majority of us are going to do.
And very rarely subtracting the amount of energy our body would have used just by being alive.
The tech claiming 600 when it was maybe 450 and we’d have used 100 if we were asleep – a 350 net benefit.
In general I’m not a massive fan of considering exercise for it’s calorie using ‘benefits’ – for a few reasons;
1. As mentioned, the numbers given are usually optimistic. If we add them onto our daily allowance, we’ll usually be ‘out’ overall.
2. We’ve normally factored in our average exercise levels when we calculated our numbers (selecting a ‘multiplier’ of lightly, moderately, very or extra active) so ‘adding them on’ again means we’re counting them twice and having more overall than we need.
3. It can lead to thoughts of exercise as ‘punishment’ for having fun rather than something enjoyable that makes us feel good.
In general, I like to think of exercise as being great for body shape and composition, energy levels, mood, health, fitness, aches and pains and much more (we’ll help that AND the food side at www.myrise.co.uk/apply)
But pretty rubbish for weight loss.
That’s where the food side comes in (it’s infinitely easier to drop the same numbers of calories through some tactical changes to our eating than it is through exercise).
Ultimately, doing extra exercise is always good.
But then so is questioning some of it’s benefits and the impact those thoughts have on our other choices and the results they bring.
Much love,
Jon ‘smart @rse’ Hall
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RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!
