What happens if you don’t eat healthily yet exercise?

 

ATHENS — Maybe you consistently eat fast food for dinner despite running 20 to 30 miles a week. Maybe you keep a food diary from Monday to Friday but indulge on the weekends. Or perhaps you’re someone who keeps soda, chips, and cookies in the house since your exercise routine keeps you trim.

It may seem impossible to eat whatever you want without suffering the repercussions, especially if you’ve convinced yourself that you’ll burn it off during your next aerobic workout. However, specialists assert that it is unimportant if you exercise more frequently or for a longer period of time. Exercise can somewhat undo the consequences of a poor diet.

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You can be unwell even if you look slim .

On social media, a person who appears small but has a high body fat percentage is referred to as “skinny fat.” A frequent exerciser might have minimal visceral fat but a lot of visceral fat, which is the fat that lies just beneath the skin and is easy to squeeze. Because it covers your organs, this fat layer is less obvious.

Dr. Colin Carriker, an exercise physiologist and associate professor of health and human performance at High Point University in North Carolina, cautioned that visceral fat is more harmful than the visible outer layer of fat. The same kinds of dangers that come with obesity could arise from eating processed meals heavy in sugar, salt, and carbohydrates that cause visceral fat to accumulate.

For instance, the illness known as atherosclerosis, which causes the arteries to stiffen and become narrower, may be brought on by excessive amounts of visceral fat circulating throughout the body. This obstruction raises the risk of heart attack and stroke because it prevents blood from reaching the remainder of the body’s tissues.

Exercise without a focus on healthy food increases the risk of dying young. In one of the largest studies to examine the relationship between physical activity and diet quality, researchers discovered that persons who frequently exercised but ate whatever they wanted had a higher mortality risk than those who did both.

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Why it is so difficult to overcome a poor diet

The secret to losing weight is to create a calorie deficit, or a situation in which you burn more calories than you take in. However, this can be difficult if you often consume fatty, high-calorie items. Carriker remarked, “You are overeating calories and will need to do way more exercise than a person can sustain over the long term.”

Spending more time exercising or working out harder would be one option. However, this strategy does not actually work when you are out of gas, according to registered dietitian and Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics spokesman Grace Derocha. This is due to the high amount of empty calories in fast food and sugar-sweetened beverages.

Foods that have been processed, like soda and sweets, contain very little nutrition. Lacking vitamins, protein, and fiber will leave you feeling continually hungry, making it difficult to consider exercising out. People who do not eat well are frequently still hungry, grumpy, and lack the same drive or incentive to exercise, according to Derocha.

Those ineffective calories will make it more difficult to have a successful workout session if you do manage to get to the gym. Registered dietitian Caroline Susie, who is also a representative for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, noted that while fatty foods may initially provide a brief energy boost, they will not be sufficient to sustain a lengthy or intense workout.

If you are not obtaining the correct nutrients, it will not matter what kind of training you do in the long run. People who lift weights typically burn more calories than those who exercise by doing cardio. Derocha claimed that obtaining nutrients from low-quality foods will make it more difficult to increase muscle mass and completely recover from a demanding activity.

Your best strategy is to increase your intake of high-protein foods like chicken and salmon in order to gain muscle mass. Protein and other macronutrients assist maintain and increase lean muscle mass, according to Derocha.

The key is moderation.

You do not have to stop eating the foods you like to be healthy. People frequently demonize particular foods, and believing you must abstain from sweets or carbohydrates can lead to a destructive relationship with food, according to Derocha.

Susie suggested changing your attitude rather than feeling bad about eating dessert or having takeaway the other night. She advised focusing on the type of energy food can supply rather than just the number of calories it contains. If you have consumed enough fiber today, consider adding more protein, omega-3 fatty acids, or healthy carbs.

It is merely fuel, not good or bad food, she stated. things is healthier to view things from an adding position rather than a restriction standpoint.

Salah Aslan