So, judging by my last blog, you may have thought that I pretty much sailed through my first Bootcamp workout.  After all, I connected my exercise descriptions with benign, friendly little connecting words like “and then I did _______”.  I wish that I could say that I did as well as I made it sound like I did.  In reality, I had to take a break halfway through the second cycle.  A little pride was swallowed as I realized that I had reached my limit, but I also took some pride in knowing that I had reached my limit.

After this experience, I made an interesting discovery.  Have you ever heard the words “diet and exercise”?  Who hasn’t, right?  Those two ideas have been slapped together and glued together with the adhesive of popularity for a long, long, long, long time.  They’re right up there with peas and carrots (thanks to Forest Gump), ketchup and mustard, mashed potatoes and gravy, etc…  People never really question the idea of “diet and exercise” being the key to fitness success either, at least not that I have heard.  Well, I question it now.

I was struck with the idea that maybe “diet and exercise” is not the best way to phrase the concept because while diet is important, it is not something that should be treated on a separate plate (like the analogy?  It’s food related.  Clever, eh?) than exercise.  Too often I think people simply say, “To be fit you should eat good and healthy things and exercise daily.”  That sounds alright, but what about my experience of fatigue at Bootcamp?  I didn’t eat junk that day.  Granted, I was tired mostly because I am genuinely out of shape, but I also considered the idea that maybe I ran out of fuel.  A car is only as useful as the amount of gas in the tank, so how is the human body all that different?  It was then that a new, and perhaps better, phrase popped into my head as a replacement for “diet and exercise”: “Diet for training.”  What do you think?  I put a “for” in the middle there because it drives home the idea that I am eating on purpose, for a purpose.  I am eating with the goal in mind that I will be fuelled for my next training session, not so that I can brag that all I ate today was baby carrots and yogurt, and then collapse at Bootcamp.

I swapped the word “training” for “exercise” because when I think of exercise I think of a stagnant routine in which one workout is isolated from the other, connected by nothing more than time.  “Training” makes me think of a persistent, consistent effort towards a goal.  Training really never ends either, does it?  Once we train for a purpose and achieve that purpose we keep on doing it.  Otherwise, what was the training for?

There are my two cents.  Maybe three.  I’ll let you know in future blogs how I modify my diet and how it helps…  Oh, and if you go out and write a book called something like Don’t Diet and Exercise, Diet for Training, I expect half your royalties and an apology.  Those are my terms.

Tags: Adam Zobel, Article, Bootcamp, Diet, Education, exercise, fat-loss, Healthy Eating, informational, nutrition, results, Workout