Do you watch live TV anymore?
If you’re like me then it’s only the recent series of Line of Duty.
With the smorgasbord of streaming services, you can pretty much watch what you want, when you want.
And it’s great.
Nothing on TV that you want to watch tonight?
No problem, there’s bound to be something on Netflix, or Prime, or AppleTV.
All of which tends to lead to over-indulging in my experience.
Why watch one episode when you can watch four?
I mean Netflix is set up for it.
The next episode will start before the one your watching finishes.
It’s a trap we can all fall into.
And before you know it you’ve lost the whole weekend…
Ok, the last time that happened was about 8 years ago pre Andrew.
But it is easy to lose an evening to a series.
And along with the TV binging often comes a bit of extra food.
After all binge TV without some munchies?
I mean, what would the world be coming to?
And you can justify it because you went out for a run earlier.
But not so fast on playing the exercise joker.
Guidelines from the International Society of Sports Nutrition might trump that.
If all you are doing is running for 30-40 minutes 3 times a week, there is NO need to eat any more than normal.
In fact, even if you are training 5-6 times a week you only need an extra 200-400 kcals above maintenance.
And it’s only when you get into the realms of professional sport or manual labourers that you can think of adding a significant amount more.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you can’t have our treats, but you need to account for them.
So if you do grab that bag of crisps you might need to skip something much more nutritious.
And this is one of the reasons so many people don’t lose weight, and even gain weight even though they’re training regularly.
Plus activity trackers only re-enforce this. As they tend towards over-estimating the calories burnt.
So even if you’re hitting your 10,000 steps on top of your training it’s best to think of this as a basic level of activity.
Activity that might allow you to get away with a bag of crisps…
But definitely not feasting on Krispy Kreme doughnuts whilst binge-watching your fav’s on Netflix.