You will see people saying “I need to work off the calories at the gym” each time there is a bank holiday and even during the festive season, but this is harmful to yourself and to others. Fat loss expert and social media influencer Isabella Murray explains why it’s inaccurate and harmful”
“First we need to explain how we actually burn calories. You burn more calories by living compared to exercise, so burning it off through exercise is such an unhealthy mindset and most importantly almost impossible. We burn calories in four different ways, and we can visualise this as a pyramid. At the bottom of the triangle burns the most calories and the top the least.
So, BMR burns the most this is your basic metabolic rate, it is the calories you burn by simply living. BMR varies from one person to another, BMR includes breathing, your blood moving around your body, cell production, literally anything your body does to live. This all burns calories.
Next is non exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), for everything else that isn’t sleeping, eating or sports.
Next comes calories burnt by exercise so, you see, you would probably burn off ‘those extra calories’ whilst you are sleeping and simply living as opposed to overdoing it at the gym.
And when we calculate what your calorie deficit is for your fat loss journey, the first thing calculators will ask you if your age, weight and height, which is your BMR. Then it will ask you how active you are, so the determination of how many calories you need to lose body fat is actually mainly based off your BMR anyway… so it doesn’t make any scientific sense to overwork yourself at the gym to ‘burn off’ the bank holiday calories.
So yes, you will be burning off the BBQ, the chocolate etc, whilst you sleep, while you breathe, literally anything you do to live.
In addition to this, there is a concept called calorie banking: think of it as literal banking – if your goal is 1,800 calories a day to reduce body fat, then that’s 12,600 a week so, in cash to make it simple to understand, that would be £12,600, so if you deposit a little bit at a time for that week to make the total of 12,600 then that’s fine. So if you are on a calorie deficit for fat loss, bank holiday food won’t ruin your progress.
There is no need to punish yourself this bank holiday. Spend the time off enjoying food and enjoying the time with family and friends.”
