Of the many approaches I see people taking to lose fat and get fit there's one that consistently under-delivers and often makes matters worse.

Of the many approaches I see people taking to lose fat and get fit there's one that consistently under-delivers and often makes matters worse.

I call it the "Eating on Credit" technique. Here's a classic example:

You've had a nice dinner out with some friends, and afterwords one of them is eagerly thumbing through the dessert menu. This friend is trying to lose some weight and you can see her having an internal debate about whether to order the chocolate cake or be good and skip it.

After a minute of this, something clicks in your friend's brain and she announces she's going to order the cake, with the all-important "Eating on Credit" sub-clause;

"It's ok, tomorrow I'll just do an extra 15 minutes on the elliptical..." 

This person is saying that tomorrow's exercise is going to make up for today's indulgence. Eat now, pay later. This strategy is poisonous to your fitness progress for so many reasons. Let me count the ways!

The most obvious flaw with Eating on Credit is that very often the bill is never paid.

Can you remember what you had for lunch yesterday? Two days ago? You probably have to think about it for a second, right? This same amnesia applies to all the promises we make ourselves in the middle of a calorie-laden treat. Very few people have the discipline to actually pay off calories that they've already eaten. I certainly don't have that level of mental organization, I have a hard enough time remembering where I put my keys, much less what my caloric balance sheet looks like from yesterday.

The next problem is double dipping into the credit well.

Let's say your friend has actually remembered to exercise a little longer to burn off that piece of cake. There's still a good chance that sometime that day or week they're going to remember how hard they worked and go a little overboard with another poor food choice. "I'll have that bag of chips, after all I put in all that extra time on the elliptical yesterday." So they've used one exercise session to rationalize two poor diet choices. The math doesn't add up and the fat gets packed on!

But let's give your friend the benefit of the doubt, she remembers to exercise more and doesn't double dip into that credit pool.

The next problem is that people underestimate the calories in food while overestimating the amount of calories burned during exercise.

Let's look at that chocolate cake.

One slice of chocolate cake with frosting will come in around 250 calories. (Add a scoop of ice cream and that can get up to 500 calories in no time, but we'll give your friend a fighting chance and skip the a la mode scenario) That 250 calories will be eaten in 5-10 minutes, depending on the care with which your friend enjoys the treat.

Now, let's talk about the elliptical machine.

This type of machine burns about 10 calories per minute. An extra 15 minutes on it would negate 150 calories of overeating. That means we're still 100 calories in debt to that piece of cake. The sad truth is that our friend needs a whopping 25 minutes on the machine to truly pay off her calorie bill. And yet the cake was consumed in just 5 short minutes.

This is the inherent imbalance between our modern ultra-refined foods and old fashioned exercise. Hundreds of calories can be consumed very quickly, but there's no shortcut to burning them off.We still haven't come to grips with exactly how much energy we're consuming and how much exercise it takes to burn through it. With your friend's busy and fulfilling life, an extra 25 minutes on the elliptical machine is probably not going to happen. Again, the columns don't add up and the fat packs on!

Finally, there is a philosophical problem with Eating on Credit.

For truly sustainable fitness, exercise needs to be its own reward.

I know of no long-term exercisers who are in it only to make their calories balance out. Approaching exercise with that mindset makes it an interminable chore that you will give up on within weeks. Exercise because it makes you feel good, because it gets you out of the house, because it's a pleasure to experience your body in motion as it was designed to be, anything is better than doing it to burn calories. The irony is that as soon as you start exercising just to exercise you lose fat and start looking great!

Sometimes after dishing out some advice like this I'll get some push-back. "So I'm never allowed a piece of cake? You just want me to eat carrot sticks every night!?" Quite the contrary. I'm all for enjoying the pleasures of rich food. If you're going to have something indulgent, don't taint the experience by worrying about how many calories are in it or how you're going to burn them off. Eat and enjoy! But you must use this power responsibly. A wedding, a birthday, a victory celebration, or any of the moments in life that revolve around delicious food should be embraced. If you exercise and have an otherwise balanced diet these calorie inputs will burn off like nothing happened. It's the habitual weekly overeating that's making you fat and sick, not the one-off birthday cakes.

Truly changing your body is about restructuring your entire approach to food and exercise, not doing mental gymnastics as you rationalize poor choices with promises of future piety.

Stop eating on credit, and start eating as an investment in your body and your health. That means vegetables and fruit! Vegetables! Fruit! FRUIT! VEGETABLES!

Cake photo by Pam G, elliptical machine from USCPSC

Patrick Reynolds // Kenzai Founder