When it comes to losing weight, exercise is very much overrated. The old adage “you can’t out-train a bad diet” is often uttered in fitness circles, but far less frequently heeded by those who’d most benefit from hearing this advice. And there’s science to back up this sentiment.

Need more proof? Look at me. I routinely exercise over 8 hours per week, using a mix of cycling, running, and bodyweight training to burn calories and prepare myself for the beach each summer. Unfortunately, the results of the hours of exercise are usually undone by a large intake of cookies and beer. 

Cutting Out the Junk Calories

Cookies and beer are wonderful things. But are they really making that big of a difference in my health and fitness? Just how big of an impact do beer, cookies, and overeating, in general, have on an athlete’s weight? 

In June, I aim to find out. I’ll be cutting out sweets and alcohol, while not changing my exercise habits, to see just how effective reducing “junk” calories is for athletes who want to lose that annoying extra 10lbs of fluff. Or flub. Or fat. Whatever you want to call it. 

I’ll be counting calories, but for the sole purpose of monitoring what food I actually eat. I won’t be trying to hit a daily caloric intake number to intentionally lose weight. I’ll stick to my normal diet, minus the alcohol and baked goods. 

Starting metrics:

Height: 5’8 3/4

Starting weight: 178.5

BMI: 27.1 (overweight)

Resting HR: 48

VO2: 56.2

Is this perfect science? No. But I think it’ll be fascinating anecdotal experiment to see how our bodies might change by cutting out the things that our doctors have been telling us to cut out for years. I’ll check in weekly with some updates metrics and we’ll see how this goes.