Food and Fitness: Does it Matter What I am Eating if I am Exercising?

I used to think it didn’t. I was a swimmer in high school. We practiced 2 hours a day totaling 6000 to 7000 yards a day. Needless to say, after burning that many calories, I went home ready to eat. As a swimmer, my go-to food was pasta. Now and then during our season, we would have a team pasta dinner before a big meet. Now I wasn’t overweight by any means in my younger years- for most of my childhood, I was considered underweight. But I did like to eat.

So when I realized I could eat all of the pasta dinners I wanted I dug in, because I knew I was going to swim thousands of yards the next day at practice and burn it all off anyway. I wasn’t counting calories in my food or keeping track of how much I burned. I just swam hard at practice and ate hard at home.

Here’s the thing though… High school swim team workouts are not the same as an average workout. Most people aren’t swimming 6000 yards every day on sprint intervals to drop time during the next meet.

I learned this the hard way.

When I graduated high school and began college, I did not continue in the swimming world. The problem? I kept the eating habits of a swimmer. “The Freshman 15” hit me hard and continued to hit me throughout college, becoming “The College 20”. During the times that I did a workout, I would go to the campus Chick-Fil-A afterward for my dinner.

Flash forward to this year, about two months ago I joined the wellness app “Noom”. Noom is unlike many other nutrition apps because it explores the psychology behind eating. The first thing I learned was that Noom measures food in caloric density. Caloric density refers to the measure of the calorie content of food relative to its weight or volume. Fruits and vegetables are low in caloric density while red meats, French fries, and fast foods are high in caloric density. Foods that are lower in caloric density are more likely to make you feel satisfied longer. For example, you will feel more full after eating 10 grapes than after eating 10 raisins because grapes are lower in caloric density.

After learning this, my way of viewing food began to change. No wonder I could not keep the weight off in college- yes, I was exercising, but I was not fueling my body with the right foods.

Once I began eating more healthily, I was not only working out more regularly but also fueling my body with the nutrients that it needed and so far I have lost 9 pounds in these short few months.

Taking charge of my health has been incredibly rewarding and empowering in my day-to-day life.

A Response From Amy Stanley

Reading what my daughter Hannah wrote above means the world to me, and makes me feel proud in so many ways – most importantly in the knowledge that Hannah (as a real adult of 25 years) is not just parroting what she has heard all her life. She is truly living her own story, regarding food and fitness… I feel compelled to add a few notes, from my mom-brain perspective.

Back in 1996, the moment I realized I birthed a Girl-child,” I was plagued with thoughts of fear and worry… To be honest, I was so sure I would only have boys (weird, I know), and I really only “wanted” boys, because I somehow believed I would be less likely to “mess them up!” It all seems funny to me now, but what I remember is instantly thinking “I promise not to make my daughter as self-conscious, self-critical, and self-sabotaging as I was…” Sounds dramatic I know, but having grown up with my mother – a darling and sporty lady who inadvertently modeled self-loathing and constant failed attempts at fad-dieting – I had a head full of unhealthy habits by the time I was 11 years old. Additionally, the Farrah Fawcett/Charlie’s Angels “skinny-beautiful” esthetic was also kicking into high gear, and I was a TV Princess, soaking it all in!

I remember doing a little bit of everything to become fit and try to lose weight: I made up a circuit training workout around my neighborhood, where I would run from stop sign to stop sign, doing push-ups and sit-ups at each stop… I drank Crystal Lite instead of breakfast, lunch, and dinner (sometimes with a “cheat” of a Saltine or two, broken into fours, if I couldn’t make it through the day).  I made a weight-graph chart to display on the refrigerator, marking my daily weight in colored markers as it went up (red marker) or down a pound (green marker). I put notes on most of the food in the fridge saying “AMY, DO NOT EAT!” I was only in the sixth and seventh grade, and already obsessing!

In my college years, although I had begun teaching aerobic classes and was quite fit, I also sadly had fallen into worsening habits like dabbling in anorexia, and then bulimic binge/purging. There were many years of yo-yo dieting and extreme behaviors before I was able to do some therapy and learn how to even out.

The journey to finding myself as a much better version of *me, now* – in my impassioned career of health and fitness – is a tale for another blog post, which I look forward to writing soon!

Then came 1996 and my newborn baby daughter, who gave me an instantaneous “aha moment” – a newfound reason to change my relationship with myself – for her sake if not for my own. I vowed to teach her that her body is a blessed vessel, which carries her strongly and proudly, when fueled properly. By the way, this was especially hard in the “nuggets and noodles” phase of young childhood! I also vowed to do my best not to self-bash or talk angrily (at least not in her presence) about “how fat I looked.” After my son Jack was born, I realized that boys get self-conscious too, and also need the same kind of healthy modeling. I really wanted my children to understand their bodies in ways that I never did when I was young. I tried my best not to force the “clean your plate,” ideal, yet we always encouraged them to try new foods, but without forcing them, as had happened to me in my youth. I encouraged the principle of “moderation in all things,” to steer them both clear of following in my “extremism” footsteps. My husband agreed with me when I asked if we could avoid complimenting them on their looks alone, but rather  put emphasis on character and accomplishments, big and small.

Did we still eat the occasional McD’s (gasp) and the very frequent Chik-fil-A? Yes, most definitely! But we metered (bribed, sometimes!) the Junk with a bit of fruits and veggies, throughout their lives.

Fast-forward to the college years and beyond… Both of my grown children are much more interested in their self-care and wellness than ever before. Though I watched them both struggle at first to follow healthy habits on their own, I am beyond proud to see it happening on a daily basis, now!