Someone told me last week they were going to go for a three-hour run.
The night before had been a big one.
A lot of food.
More than they meant to eat.
And now they were trying to cancel it out. Three hours of running to erase one dinner.
I recognized it right away, because I used to do the same thing.
Back when I was a teenager, I didn’t know any better.
Big night, so the next day I’d try to punish it out.
Run it off. Skip meals.
Make yesterday’s very bad into today’s very good.
I’ve weighed myself every morning for six years, and I still feel it.
I still step on the scale, see a number higher than I want, and get that knee-jerk reaction.
In a millisecond I’m strategizing:
30,000 steps today
Skip breakfast.
Maybe Skip lunch too.
I quickly remind myself what this actually is.
It’s one day.
Inside a week.
Inside a month.
Inside a year.
Inside a decade.
Inside a lifetime.
It is not that serious.
My consistent behavior wins out over one night where I ate 1,500 more calories than I’d have liked.
So when this person asked me the best way to cancel out last night, I told them not to.
No 3 hour runs.
No skipping meals.
The best thing you can do is return to normal. And normal isn’t punishment. Normal is a non-extreme calorie deficit, activity you can keep progressing, and small increases in difficulty over time with strength training and cardio that challenges you without wrecking you.
— James