From Time to Calories
One of the insights that was reiterated to me in the book How Not to Die is how limited the effect of exercise is on weight loss. Simply because you burn relatively few calories through exercise, especially compared to how many calories you consume by, for example, snacking. And I’m an incredible snacker—or rather: extremely sensitive to sweets. So the hard truth is that exercising alone is hardly worth it if you’re doing it solely to lose weight.
Don’t get me wrong: exercising is still healthy for your heart, muscles, mental resilience, and so on. But if you exercise with the sole purpose of losing weight, you’re not on the right track. Unless you’re consciously exercising a lot—at a level where your calorie consumption actually starts to add up. Half an hour of activity doesn’t do much, but three times half an hour a day does make a difference.
That nuance has changed my perspective, especially now that I’m working on my weight loss journey—or better: my “weight loss course”, on the way to a target weight. I’ve linked that weight to a reward: only when I reach it, am I allowed to buy myself a sports car. (Read more about that in other pieces.)
Since then, I no longer look at how long I’ve been rowing, but at how many calories I burn. And it turns out that at my current pace, I burn exactly 100 calories per quarter hour. So in an hour: 400. Recently, I rowed until I reached 500 calories for the first time—that was 75 minutes of rowing. Nicely rounded: 100 calories per quarter hour. And 500 calories, that’s starting to add up—that’s, for example, worth a large tyamitsu.
Why the focus on calories? Because for the past few days, I’ve been consciously counting calories again. Also because yesterday I fell into something described in the book How Not to Diet: the so-called what-the-hell syndrome.
What happened? The day before yesterday, I fasted because I wasn’t seeing any progress. For me, it’s simple: once I start eating, it’s hard to stop. So I decided not to eat for a day. That went well. I drove to Ludoviek to help Miranda set up a room, and everything went according to plan.
I had promised myself to stick to one fasting day—the book also advises not to overdo fasting. But then, day two: not fasting, just eating cautiously. Until Miranda and I discovered a new place selling healthy bowls. We went in and each ordered a bowl. Of course, a large portion. Healthy, yes, but still a lot: rice, vegetables, everything included. So that plan of “eating little today” was immediately off the table.
And once home… got chocolate milk, snacked, too much again.
In short: yesterday I ruined my whole day again.
Today we started again. A day of fasting—as punishment and as a reset. And for the first time, rowed together 500 calories.
Side note: of course, you can never fully trust what those rowing machines indicate. Maybe it was only 400 calories. Or maybe 600. But for me, this is an important turning point: no longer measuring my exercise by time, but by the number of calories I burn.