Move More to Eat Smarter
KEY POINTS:
1. It's been suggested that exercise can affect "self-regulation", improving a number of behaviours such as lower stress, less alcohol and caffeine consumption, and an increase in healthy food choices.
2. Moving more will help you to be more in tune with your body. It will help you to make smarter food choices, and you'll notice the difference between when you eat well and when you eat poorly.
3. By combining consistent exercise with good nutrition, you'll amplify the effects and get fitter, stronger, and healthier faster.
Surprisingly, the science on how increased exercising impacts healthy eating choices is limited. One study shows that after sticking to an exercise program for two months, research participants experienced improvements in a wide range of “regulatory behaviours,” including lower stress, less alcohol and caffeine consumption, and an increase in healthy eating. The researchers suggest that exercise amplifies the capacity for self-regulation. I believe that when we make positive changes in any area, ripple effects cascade through our lives. I know this is true for moving more and how it can influence eating.
Adopting an exercise routine or changing a workout will have a powerful impact on your physiology. In the short term, you burn more energy than you otherwise would during your activity sessions, and your body spends more energy helping to refuel, repair, and regenerate itself between workouts. So at first you will feel the need to eat more. This can be a pitfall, so be careful and plan ahead. When you start a workout routine or you change things up to keep it fresh or to increase your workloads as you get fitter, make sure you plan on having loads of healthy foods around to fuel your exercise and help your body recover. This is where many people have trouble, sometimes even gaining body fat upon starting an exercise routine. Remember, you can’t outrun a bad diet.
However, once you’ve gotten used to your new routine, you’ll make better food choices. You’ll feel the effects of good and bad foods more acutely. You’ll notice when you have eaten well and how that makes you feel better before, during, and after your workouts. You will also become more sensitive to the bad foods you eat. You will feel sluggish or even sick. Your body will send you signals about what is working for you and what isn’t. Make sure you listen, and surround yourself with healthy food options. Great nutrition and consistent exercise do not happen on their own—they take planning and commitment. When you put the two together, they amplify results and you’ll get healthier and fitter faster.
This Week’s Exercise: Sprinkle movement into your day
This week your challenge is to sprinkle some more physical activity into your day. This doesn’t mean you have to make drastic changes to your lifestyle. Like the sitting habit, there are some simple strategies you can use to increase your daily physical activity:
1. If you drive to work, try parking your car further away than you normally do.
2. If you have the option to walk or ride your bike to work, that's even better.
3. Whenever possible, schedule a walking meeting instead of one in which everyone is sitting around a table.
4. If you have a break between meetings, phone calls, or tasks, go for a quick walk. In addition to the physical benefits, this will clear your head, making you more productive for the rest of the workday.
Try these strategies this week. The goal is to sprinkle in more physical activity into each day, so it’s okay if you don’t do it all at once. Add up your total active time at the end of the day to see how much you’re getting. Use the Physical Activity Tracker to help you with this exercise, which is in the downloads section of this article. It's also on page 29 of The Ripple Effect Workbook. Let us know how it goes!
Bonus Content
Congratulations on completing today's Move More lesson!
Here's the next video - it is all about hill training.
The information and advice provided in this program is intended to assist you with improving your performance, as well as your general health. It is not intended and should not be used in place of advice from your own physician or for treatment or diagnosis of any specific health issue. By participating in this program you acknowledge that undertaking any new health, diet and/or exercise regime involves certain inherent risks, that you assume such risks, and that you release Wells Performance Inc. from any responsibility or claim relating to such participation.