Early morning run, afternoon nap?

Today's exercise:

1-hour run

Whew, I pulled it off: I got up early this morning and went for a run before officially starting my day. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've gone running without eating something first, so I was curious about what my energy level would be like ... definitely low, but I'm guessing that might have something to do with the reduced amount of sleep I got last night, along with the fact that I'm still sore from Sunday's run and went running this morning less than 12 hours after wrapping up my workout last night. Not the most generous amount of recovery time ...

So, it's not even 3:00 and I'm really tired, to the point that I'm wondering how I can get my younger daughter to agree to let me take a nap. This is making me think of the cover article from TIME magazine a couple weeks ago:

Why Exercise Won\'t Make You Thin

My main takeaway from this article was, "Duh." Of course exercise alone won't make you thin. You've got to consume fewer calories at the same time. And certainly, you can lose weight by skipping the workouts entirely and restricting your calories. But in my experience, weight doesn't stay off without exercise.

I've had two major weight loss efforts in my life: the first was about 10 years ago, the second four years ago. The first time, I did Weight Watchers -- went to meetings, counted points, the whole thing. I exercised fairly regularly, but not strenuously; I mostly took power walks and occasionally hit the gym, but I wasn't doing anything organized with weights. I lost about 30 pounds, some of which had come back by the time I got pregnant with my younger daughter. Of course, all of it came back -- and then some -- while I was knocked up. And it didn't come off very easily after she was born ... I just couldn't get rid of the last 15 pounds or so.

When C was two, I couldn't stand it anymore and went back on Weight Watchers. This time, I did their online program -- no meetings, I just logged my points and tracked them through their site. I realized really quickly that the only way I was ever going to feel like I'd had enough to eat was by exercising to earn more points, which I could then use to treat myself to things like a slice of cheese on my turkey-and-whole-grain-bread sandwich. I started doing cardio workouts several days a week, then read something about the benefits of weight training -- that replacing fat with muscle is good because muscles burn more calories than fat. Which basically means that the more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you can consume without gaining weight. Bring on the muscle, I thought, and added three days per week of weight training into my schedule.

Long story short, I lost about 25 pounds and I've kept it off for over four years. I'm now smaller than I've been at any point in my adult life. I have gained some pounds back, but I've lost inches -- which tells me that I've increased the amount of muscle on my body. And, best of all, I don't have to be crazy about watching what I eat. For the most part, I eat what I want. Sometimes I overindulge too regularly, then notice that my pants are getting tight (I try to stay off the scale because looking at the number stresses me out; instead, I use my clothes as a guideline -- if they still fit the same, I know I'm OK). When that happens, I pay closer attention to what I'm eating for a while. Usually the extra padding comes off after a few weeks, then I relax again. Sometimes I go back to counting calories for a while, and stop when I'm happy with how my clothes are fitting.

The difference between my first attempt at weight loss and my second? It's exercise, pure and simple. I do work out like a fiend -- six days of cardio per week, three of those with weights -- and I confess that a large part of why I do it is because I want to stay slender. But a larger part is because I love it. I couldn't keep it up if that wasn't the case.

So, TIME magazine, cheers to you for stating the obvious and not taking it any further: you can't eat whatever you want, then exercise and expect to lose weight.

The article did raise an interesting question about whether people who exercise strenuously compensate for it by reducing their other activities or eating more calories (thus potentially negating the weight-loss value of their workouts) ... that certainly may be the case for me today, sitting in my chair and feeling so sleepy after taking a run this morning. In fact, I am too tired to address the issue at all right now, so I'll save it for another post. But I'm not headed upstairs for a nap; instead, I am going to take little C to the neighborhood spray pad to play in the sunshine.