Treadmill Psychology and Starbucks
January 29th, 2009
I don’t know how many of you actually use a treadmill but I’m sure most of you own one.
Physically, I use mine on occassion, definitely not everyday, and I burn about 250 – 300 calories in a 20-25 minute range depending on the incline and speed levels.
Mentally, however, I use my treadmill every day. How do you use a treadmill mentally you say? It’s pretty easy actually.
Over the course of one’s life there are many indulgences and mine used to be Starbucks. A tall caramel macchiato in the morning sure got my engine running but it also cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of 180 calories at a time.
Now if you are one of those people who have a Starbucks weakness, try running on the treadmill for 15 minutes before you go and fork over a fistfull of cash for your specialty coffee. Make sure to make a note of how many calories you burned in that treadmill session and then before you head over to Starbucks ask yourself if it is really worth it to almost nearly cancel out all the effort you just put in on the treadmill. Some might say that they are simply breaking even, 200 calories burned against 200 calories gained, and that might be fine if you are someone who is in decent shape.
The simple psychology behind what I’m saying is that you must recognize how hard you have to work to burn off the calories of something that is so easy to eat or drink. For me, giving up Starbucks was almost the equivalent of running on a treadmill for 15 minutes a day, without the cardio benefits of course. Now when I do run on the treadmill, it is actually a bonus calorie loss for me as opposed to those I mentioned above who prefer to break even in calories. There is a big difference in the approaches, one is losing weight and the other is maintaining weight.
If you are happy with your current health, then by all means continue breaking even and hope that your indulgences don’t soon increase and get the best of you. But if you are here reading this now, then at some point you must have searched for diet advice and losing weight is on your agenda.
Simply put, it is a numbers game.
On days where I don’t feel like doing a treadmill run, I’m appreciative of the fact that I was able to give up my daily ritual of a caramel macchiato. I lost nearly the equivalent calories by not adding them into my system in the first place.
Try a few runs and you’ll see what I mean. Even if you don’t eliminate your indulgence immediately, keep up with the running. Eventually you will get tired of cancelling out all your hard work. Don’t worry if you do break your indulgence and have an occassional relapse later, just make a promise to yourself to work extra hard on the treadmill those days to ensure that you more than cancel out those calories.
Categories: Health and Diet
