“If I eat this cheeseburger, that just means an extra 40 minutes on the treadmill”

“I’m going to have just this one… just this one donut. I’ll just squeeze in a couple more miles on the bike”

“Ooooh OK. I’ll have another piece of pie. I’ll just have to visit the gym an extra day this week”

Does any of this sound vaguely familiar? Bartering, bargaining, and rationalizing your bad eating habits, those empty promises to your body, and being comfortable with your overall eating lifestyle without the guilt. It’s that guilt factor that keeps us from becoming a down right glutton, but this habit of bargaining a food item for some extra exercise is a disastrously imbalanced deal that ultimately leads to failure.

Weight loss and ‘dieting’ (yes, I still hate that word) come down to a game of numbers. You have to get rid of more than you take in. There’s no way to trick, bend, warp or fudge those numbers. You consume a certain number of calories, and your body ‘uses up’ or ‘burns’ a certain amount of calories. We all make the deal with the devil by trying to satisfy this equation. If my actions will add ‘X’ number of calories to my body, then I have ‘work off /burn/melt” ‘X’ number of calories. That way I have net gained zero. At least that’s what we tell ourselves…

Please read on over at Scrubs Magazine There’s No Bargaining In Weight Loss

Tags: bargain, diet, exercise, healthy eating, weight loss