Your food is fuel.  It supplies the necessary energy and nutrients to allow your body to function.  We all know that.  So, it's a rude awakening to look at your food as fuel sometimes.   A while back, I wrote about how to increase your intensity during your workout routine.   I hope you've had a chance to pump up your intensity after reading that article even if it was only a few times.  It's a tough agenda.  What sparked me to write this piece was my addiction to candy and sugar-treats.

 You see, when you work out hard, you really get these primal cravings for sugar and I must admit, I was weak many times.  Sometimes, I would eat a whole bad of gummy bears, or sour-patch kids, or Twizzlers.  My wife made the mistake of going to Costco and getting a full case of Hershey bars and I really did a number on those.  A Hershey bar is 270 calories and that means, at 10 calories per minute, it would take me 27 minutes to burn that off.  So, let's look at exactly what that means.

 I run about a 8-minute mile...not exactly record breaking, but fairly average.  That's about 7 MPH on the treadmill if you're a treadmill runner.   So, it was somewhat enlightening for me to realize EXACTLY what that meant, in terms of fuel consumption.  

The Gummy Bear Experiment 

One gummy bear.  One minute of exercise.  Gummy Bears are about 10 calories each.  Now, the reason why I mention the Gummy Bear example is because it's amazing to me how much your body burns.  It's a furnace.  Imagine lighting a blow torch and setting it on FULL HIGH, enough to melt jewelry.  Now take that torch and burn the Gummy Bear until it's black, burnt, and gone.  It takes awhile!  Almost a full minute to burn that thing with a high-powered torch!  First, it burns, then catches fire, then burns for awhile, then it's finally burnt.  That's how much your body burns when you exercise.   10 calories per minute.  Your body is amazing.  But, it's still a numbers game.  And with so many high-calorie foods, you can find yourself in a weight-gain situation, even WITH exercising.   

The Marathon Meal: Cheesecake Factory - Pasta Carbonara With Chicken

Eggs yolks, butter, cream. Two hundred, twenty nine minutes (229 minutes) is how much fuel this meal provides (2291 calories).     That's enough fuel to power a 28 mile run.  You would start running from WILSONVILLE and run to HILLSBORO to break even after eating this fine, tasty meal.

 Now, it's important to note that this article is for illustrative purposes only.  Your body will burn more or less.  You will burn calories after your workout due to increased metabolism.  You might work out harder than 10 cals/min.  But hopefully, if you now look at your food as your fuel, you got the point.