When I was writing my books one of the biggest problems I faced when trying to control my weight and maintain the body I wanted was dealing with the harsh change of my activity level. I went from training people in person all day long to spending a large chunk of time stuck at a computer. Sure I was producing a masterpiece, but I was also producing an ass.
In a day we burn X amount of calories. Everyday it changes. If you have a day you lay in bed and do nothing, you burn very few calories. If you have a day where you shovel snow so that you can go to the store and shop for two hours and then return home to make food for another hour and then you try to get in that HIIT workout before bed, then you burn a lot of calories.
To put it simply, you move more, you burn more.
The drag is that if you move less, you burn less.
During that period of time as I was finishing up my books I went from a daily caloric burn of 2500-2800 calories on average to 1600-1900 on average (the days I was really caught up in writing).
That is a decrease of roughly 1000 calories. That is a huge difference, HUGE.
What if I would have been trying to lose fat?
Some days, even eating 1200 calories, I wouldn’t even land in a 500 deficit. That is a harsh truth to face. Recently I have had a lot of arguments come my way about the fact that the calories you take in don’t matter. Just don’t eat “x” amount of “these kinds” of foods and you will be fine. However, the majority of my clients that come to me come because even with doing those “things” right, even with restricting carbs, even with avoiding those “bad” foods like a plague, they still couldn’t budge the fat. They still could not obtain the bodies they wanted.
You can blame carbs or fats all you want but at the end of the day, a fat free salad can still cause you to be stuck in your fat loss efforts.
Quick Fact: If you weigh roughly 130-160 pounds, are a generally healthy person, then every hour you sit and write you burn the amount of 1 egg or less.
Try and wrap your head around that. The average large egg is roughly 70 calories. At that weight, you hardly burn an egg. The average writer/blogger/forum poster can spend hours at a time writing, ranting, and working up one heck of a cortisol filled appetite.
Have you ever noticed how when in the middle of a back and forth conflict you turn to food? Have you ever noticed that while in the midst of what should be your Pulitzer Prize winning smack down, that all you want to do is grab a ciggy or glazed doughnut? That is writers stress at its peak! The intensity and passion of your emotions in that given situation need to be fueled! But guess what, on average you barely deserve a hard boiled egg. Is what your grabbing even close to what you are burning?
Why do you lunge for the carbs?
The only thing that suppress that stress and feeds the angry rage or blissful muse is insulin spiking, sugar bearing, sweet carbohydrates. Your body is smart, it will grave what it needs, and if it is around, you are going to go for it. You either fix or you feed the stress, which will it be?
How do you fix the stress?
Getting up and moving in interval sets of time is a big help towards…
- Keep caloric burn up so that you can eat more
- Lower stress levels by reducing cortisol
- Upping serotonin levels so that you aren’t in such a bad mood and wont fight on the interwbz
Beyond that knowing that your nutrient intake is on point and that your calories are under control is the next. If you don’t know how to do those things then I suggest reading those books I gained an ass for.
If you can’t do that I am not going to leave you hanging. Here is the best tips to up your calories while still writing your master pieces and being able to stuff your face with hot pockets.
Tip #1-Timer Training
I did a study on 3 people just this past month who sit all day. The difference in caloric burn in timing training was an average of 340 calories a day per person. That is huge and with little effort. Timer training is very simple, all you do is set out specific intervals of time where you can fit in as much aggressive movement as possible in the shortest amount of time. I recommend every hour doing 5 min rounds of the following…
1 Min Jumping Jacks
1 Min Speed Crunches
1 Min Burpees
1 Min Fast Body Weight Squats (Advance to Pistols if need)
1 Min Planks
If you hit at that every hour for 8 hours that is a 30 mins workout that will lead you to getting ripped in no time.
EDIT: For the Skirt Ladies (or men cause you know, equal fat loss rights here). Kick off heels though okay ladies/gents.
1 min Jog in Place
1 min Push Ups (if bent knee throw a proposal under there;) )
2 Min Plank Variations (Standard, One Arm Switch, One Leg Switch, Side)
1 Static Lunges
Enjoy!
Tip #2- Pace Yourself
Every time you take a call you stand up and start pacing. Pacing during a phone call can increase your caloric burn 200% over sitting. Meaning in 20 mins instead of burning 20 calories you can burn 60.
Tip #3- The Unstable Air Chair
I did another study around 5-6 months ago know with 4 people and monitored their burn while sitting on a Swiss exercise ball while working. Posture and caloric burn improved on average of a little over 100 calories. Please note that some did experience hemorrhoid increase, so get the H if need.
Overall if you combine just these three things you can increase your daily burn, without going to the gym, and without losing writing time on large levels, by upwards to 500-600 calories a day. You can still write your award winning piece, and looking hot doing it.
How many hours a day do you normally sit? Should you just be eating eggs every hour on the hour?
