Stop exercising to lose weight

How Would You Define Your Relationship With Exercise?

If you’re like most people (myself included), you might answer “it’s complicated."

I grew up playing sports. It wasn't until I was done playing basketball in my early twenties that I had to even consider "exercising" as something other than running up and down a basketball court. It was at this time that I realized what everyone else around me was doing. Spending an hour or more on the elliptical at the gym, logging every single meal in their MyFitness Pal app, and generally obsessing over parts of their body they hated and wanted to change.

While I can say without a doubt that I’ve been influenced by diet culture, I was also fortunate enough to study exercise physiology and have a strength and conditioning mentor who reminded me that it's okay to lift heavy, be powerful, and that it was a good thing as a woman to have muscle, for crying out loud. 

A lot of us were not as fortunate to have this sort of mentorship, and instead were raised by a society that praises the "skinny" and applauds ones ability to restrict calories. We have been taught from a young age that weight loss requires an inverse relationship of calories in to calories out. And yes, while an overall negative caloric balance is required for weight loss, SUSTAINED WEIGHT LOSS it is not meant to be achieved through severe caloric restriction and excessive time spent exercising.

This thinking of eat less, exercise more as an end-all-be-all for weight loss is oversimplified and flawed. 

The means of measuring calorie expenditure and calorie consumption are SHEER ESTIMATES. Watches, heart rate monitors and nutrition facts are AMAZING references, however there is no earthly way we can actually know the exact amount of calories you're burning or consuming daily. Basing your entire weight loss journey on these two factors would be very misguided. 

There are a multitude of other factors that will impact your body's ability to use and burn energy (calories). These range from your hormones, to your sleep quality, your mental state and stress levels, or your genetic disposition, just to name a few. Below is a visual to demonstrate all of the different factors that influence your individual "energy in" vs. "energy out." For a GREAT article on this, head here. 

At this point you may be starting to understand that your weight loss journey is complicated. You may also start to feel frustrated trying to figure out WHAT then you SHOULD focus on to reach your goal. The answer is simple. 

You need to focus on shifting your mindset.

*You eat to nourish your body, not restrict it of essential nutrients.
*You workout out to be strong and build muscle, not to burn calories.

When eat less, exercise more is all you have thought about for the last 10 or more years, it takes a lot of patience and repetition to remind you that there is more to the equation than calories in vs. calories out. Finding your true reasons for movement, beyond weight loss, is what will keep you progressing forward toward your ultimate goal-and maybe, just maybe, allow you to begin to enjoy the process along the way. 

If you’re currently struggling to find reasons past your own weight loss or body composition goal, I’ve provided some gentle reminders for reasons you want and need to exercise, and some reminders for reasons NOT to workout. 

REASONS TO WORKOUT
- to improve your strength and endurance
- to improve your cardiovascular health
- to reduce cardiovascular disease risk risk factors
- to gain lean muscle mass 
- to improve your functional strength and mobility so you can move optimally for life
- to improve your mental health
- to make yourself and your time a priority in your day
- to spend quality time with friends or a significant other
- because you love it and how it makes you feel!

REASONS NOT TO WORKOUT
- to burn XXX amount of calories
- to target fat loss in certain areas of your body
- to try and look like someone else
- to "be allowed" to eat a certain food

Slowly starting to shift your mindset and the language you use around exercise may alter your approach to this behavior. As with any lasting change, it will take time and you will learn to have to show yourself grace if you notice yourself slipping back to thinking in terms of “I ate X, so now I need to workout for X time.”

Open your mind to the idea that exercise can be anything you want it to be. It’s not a punishment, it’s a privilege to move.