Myth Busting: Can you out work a bad diet?

​ABSOLUTELY. The End….
 
But seriously the common phrase thrown around in gyms and schools is “you can’t out work a bad diet.” We’ve all heard it, heck I’m sure I’ve used the phrase before -I’m such a hypocrite. 
 
But let's really dissect this phrase, does it hold any truth? 
 
While it holds some truth when speaking on your average gym goer, the phrase is false. You can 100% out work a bad diet. Now, I do understand where coaches come from and why it is said but let's break down why it’s said and why it’s a straight up myth.
 
 
The phrase comes from the idea of your average gym/exercise session burning less calories than you would think.  Let's break it down into five different categories. (See chart below).

Btw sorry I used 225, that's what I weigh □

​​So, your level of calories that you are burning depends on how hard you're working. I would say the average gym goer is about a three on a normal day - be honest with yourself, the talking is the best part. Let's shoot on the high number, that's 650 Cal that you're burning in that hour, and really that's about all the time most people have to spend at the gym. Those calories are not hard to put back on-although you are working your cardiovascular system and overall quality of health will be improved- if weight loss is the goal, then it's not many calories. Now I'm going to use my clients as an example, I love them, but I also know they're eating habits, and this gym loves their Mexican food. At a sit-down restaurant we get carried away, eating chips and salsa, we ordered a pop, and we eat the Muskogee special (you're smiling because I'm right). We're looking at 1,300-1,800 calories for just one meal. Now those 650 calories aren't all you've burned for the day, let's add our BMR- the amount of calories you spend just living- let's go with 2000 calories which is on the high end for us middle aged folks, now let's say we burn another 500 walking around during the day. We are sitting at 3150 calories burned for the day. Man, we're doing well, we're under by about 1,000...... but that's not all we eat for the day. Let's add a small breakfast (300 calories), a spiced late because we're basic white girls (300 calories), healthy lunch (500 calories), healthy snack (200 calories), and let's add whatever we've drank for the day that's not water (200 calories) ..... we're now sitting at 3300 calories consumed for the day. 150 calories OVER what we burned that day, congratulations if you eat this way and train like this every day, in 20 days you will gain 1 pound- the opposite of what you want to do.
 
 
Does that make sense? While you are grinding and putting in the work with exercise your eating habits are causing the opposite effect of your goal. All your doing is delaying the 1lb weight gain to 20 days instead of every 4 days. 
 
This is where the phrase "you can't outwork a bad diet" came from. The belief that just exercising is enough to drop weight, it's a saying to encourage you to make healthy choices and be cognizant of what you're putting into your body. So there is truth to the phrase, -if your training & eating like this then you’re not going to outwork that bad diet, there’s just no way. Scientifically speaking you’re not going to lose weight it’s the first law of thermodynamics, “energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transferred or changed from one form to another” the food coming in is the energy, what is not destroyed (the excess calories) will be changed and stored as you guessed it… fat also known as weight gain. Weight loss doesn’t care if you “freaking killed it today bro” all it cares about is calories in vs calories out.
 
Honestly, I rambled more than I should have. I just really nerd out on this stuff. Let’s take a little mental break and come back for the second half where I debunk the myth and y’all start to think I’m a complete douche.

Okay back to debunking this myth. Based on the scale, if your workout was a level 5, a straight up grinder-and I’m not talking about the app your husband uses- and you burn on the high end 1200 calories- using the same eating habits as in the previous example, then that puts you at -400 calories for the day or an average of 1lb lost every 7.5 days if the intensity/workouts are level 5 consistently.
 
So theoretically it is absolutely possible to outwork a bad diet, but genuinely how plausible is it?  is it really achievable? And if it’s that easy why doesn’t everyone do it?
 
This is where the scientist in me comes in. Every year- and my clients HATE me for this- I TRAIN and I get absolutely obnoxious about my calorie/drink consumption. If you don’t know me well, let me tell you, I can eat, genuinely anyone who has ever gone to a meal with me will tell you, the best way to describe my eating is absolutely disgusting. During this time because it’s always summer, I enjoy my leisure drinks more than most, I truly enjoy my weekends in the sun. 
 
I don’t ease up on my calorie consumption to get a summer body, in fact I consume more than I do during the rest of the year and each year I lose 20-30lbs eating/ drinking like a complete jerk- no supplements, no anything really. The secret?
 
I out work a bad diet, year after year. This year it was 26lbs in about 6 weeks.
 
I spent the summer doing 43 Murphs, 16 Hildalgos and 5 extremely hard track workouts. I chose these because there is absolutely no way to do anything other than a 5 (exertion scale) to finish these workouts in under an hour or just over. On top of the daily workouts there is Jiu Jitsu or wrestling 5 times a week where it’s almost impossible to not be at a level 4 or 5 when going live (sparring).
 

My favorite workout from this summer. Our boys trained some wrestling with former UFC Champion Jonny Hendricks while we hit the MURPH.

​​I’m going to be honest it sucked; it still sucks. There’s no excitement after week 3, it’s a “I have to get it done” mindset. Your constantly sore, you feel new injuries coming on and it’s just straight up sucks. 
 
So, is it plausible? Yes 100%, year after year I debunk this. Now, is it worth it is the real question.
 
The positive is the weight loss without having to diet, being able to eat and drink whatever you want is really freaking nice.
 
The negative? I can write a whole blog about it. Mainly- the injuries. They start small, little nagging pains that you ignore because you HAVE to burn those calories because that rack of smoked ribs isn’t going to eat itself and that 6 pack of Modelos isn’t going to drink itself.  Eventually though they become real injuries, this year I had to sit 2 full weeks of live goes in Jiu Jitsu to try and heal up from the injuries caused by the sheer amount of volume and strain on my neck and shoulder muscles from exercise.  I’m still babying the injuries and training different during the sparring sessions because of the wear and tear. I can go on and on. 
 
So, if out working a bad diet is possible, why doesn’t everyone do it? Tats easy, its hard. Its really really hard. Your way more susceptible to injury, most people don’t like exercise in the first place so the idea of grinding that hard day after day is not worth it to them. Most people have a normal job and don’t have the time to train that hard daily – outside of the hour of training, it takes a while to mentally get locked in again. There were days where I went home and laid in bed for an hour just to feel normal again. Lastly, not everyone is a freaking psycho that’s dead set on showing their clients that hard work is all you need to reach your weight loss goals.
 
 
So, there we have it. To truly debunk something you have to prove it with facts or through science. The Question was asked, the hypothesis was formed, it’s been tested 11 years, and the data always shows the same result, boys I think we can conclude that outworking a bad diet IS possible.
 
Until next time, stay beautiful friends.