Training Ride 8/31/16

Last Ride in Colorado =(

Mount Evans!

Training Ride 8/27/16

Colorado Ride #1

Training Ride 8/23/16

Training Ride 8/22/16

Training Ride 8/20/16

Training Ride 8/17/16

Training Ride 8/16/16

Training Ride 8/15/16

Training Ride 8/13/16

Training Ride 8/10/16 Part 2

Training Ride 8/10/16

Training Ride 8/6/16

Training Ride 8/3/16

This Just In: Exercise Makes You Fat

Today I wanted to blog about this video I recently saw linked on CNN.  As an aside you can pretty much assume any article you see on CNN about fitness, nutrition, or exercise is bullshit.  The legit good advice I’ve seen on CNN articles is miniscule compared to utter bullshit.  Full disclosure, I dont go to fox news’ or MSNBC’s website so their information might actually be worse.  

Anyway, the video:

Well this video is retarded.  There is a trend in American media whereby they realized that you get more clicks/views/ratings when you tell people that their bad behavior is actually good for them.  “WAIT YOU MEAN I CAN STOP EXERCISING AND EAT BACON AND LOSE WEIGHT?!”  Gullible morons will click a link to that story on all day.  A story titled, “Eat less saturated fat and cholesterol and eat more fruits and vegetables, also get off your fat ass and run,” isn’t going to get a lot of ad revenue.

This video is the same shit.  Except instead of being overtly sensationalist clickbait its sensationalist clickbait masquerading as scientific, which is in many ways worse since people might believe it.  

The main thesis of this trash is that you spend a ton of time working out and your appetite will expand to make you eat more so you aren’t losing any weight.  Seriously, thats their main argument.  You will be hungry after a workout and eat more.  Wow.

Well that was retarded.  What’s the alternative to working out?  Calorie restriction.  Oh boy.  You want to make the argument that it will be hard to control your appetite after a workout but it will be easy to control your appetite when you’re sedentary and on calorie restriction?  Does that make sense to anyone?  Ofcourse that isn’t the case in here in reality so it can’t possibly make sense.

If the only two options available are overeat and exercise or starve yourself and be sedentary, I’ll go with exercise and overeating.  Exercise, in addition to it’s ability to assist in weightloss, is FUCKING GOOD FOR YOUR.  It strengthens your bones, joints, muscles, and cardiovascular health.  Even if exercise was of absolutely no-consequence to weight loss, it would be worth doing.  That’s why making this video is so irresponsible.  

But, lets be fair: exercise IS a good weightloss tool.  There are many ways to skin a cat, you can do a weight training regimen, gaining lean muscle mass at the expense of fat while increasing your metabolism.  You can do heavy cardio, like cycling, and incinerate thousands of calories.  Or mix them together and get results.  

Ofcourse it is quite possible to still overeat despite a lot of exercise and not lose weight.  Diet and exercise are intrinsically linked.  Ofcourse if you burn 2,000 calories on your bike ride before lunch you’re going to be quite hungry at lunch, and as well you should be.  They key is to eat healthy food when you’re replenishing your calories.  If you eat healthy food that is conducive to a lean body composition, you can eat quite a lot of it.  If you bike for 2,000 calories and then eat a lunch of rice, lentils and brocoli amounting to about 2,000 calories you’ll be stuffed to the gills and it will promote a lean body composition.  If you finish your 2,000 calorie bike ride and eat Kentucky Fried Chicken or Pizza Hut deep dish pan pizza you’ll likely stay fat, and you’ll find it quite easy to exceed the 2,000 calories for lunch.  Shocking!  Healthy food combined with exercise will make you leaner.  

Calories in calories out.  Technically true but ofcourse what you weigh isn’t as important as what you’re made of.  Being heavy, according to BMI, because you have a lean, muscular build is vastly superior to being normal weight with low muscle.  Of Course the only way you’re gonna lose weight is, to eat fewer calories than you burn.  In the long run, this isn’t sustainable.  Heck, if the deficit you run is big enough, it isn’t sustainable in the short run either.  This video posits that its harder to sustain a calories deficit due to post-workout hunger.

Bull-fucking-shit.

Let’s assume your BMR is 2,000 calories per day, aka how many calories your body needs to sustain its current weight if youre sedentary.  What’s easier…

1. Running a 400 calories daily deficit when you are sedentary and thus only eating 1600 calories daily or
2. Running a 400 calorie deficit when you exercise and burn 1000 calories and thus get to eat 2600 calories daily?

I will tell you categorically that B is easier.  When you can eat 2600 calories your meals are bigger and more satisfying.  When you’re done eating you’ll feel full and recharged.  When you’re only eating 1600 calories per day your meals will leave you unsatisfied and you will likely go to bed hungry.  

From a lifestyle perspective option B is infinitely easier.  Work out like a demon, live an active life, eat as much as you want, be fit as fuck and better looking.  Option A, advocated by this video, is to starve yourself on the road to anorexia, live a boring sedentary life that you can’t enjoy, and die of a chronic disease.  There is simply no comparison.

Oh and once you’ve hit your goal weight?  Well for the crowd who exercises, once you stop running a deficit you get to eat huge, satisfying meals while maintaining your current weight.  For the Vox starvation crowd you get to eat 2,000 calories per day which you have to continue to count scrupulously because your room for error will be so small and continue living a low energy low fun lethargic lifestyle.  

Eat more, move more, live a better life.  Fuck Vox.

Training Ride 8/2/16

Training Ride 8/1/16