So…what do you do? It seems like an innocent question, a type of common everyday small talk. And what I find interesting is that my conversations are nearly always the same.
So…what do you do?
I’m an author, speaker and wellness consultant.
Oh, what’s your book?
Happy Calories Don’t Count (neither does unhappy exercise)
What’s a happy calorie?
I find this fascinating. It seems like the words “Happy Calories” capture so much attention that hardly anyone hears the entire title. It is a rare occasion when someone notes the “unhappy exercise” piece.
This intrigues me greatly. Would the questions be any different had the title been Unhappy Exercise Doesn’t Count (neither do happy calories)? Would the follow up question become, “What’s unhappy exercise?”
Of course, the only way to truly know would be to test this out. And I don’t know that I feel comfortable falsifying the title of my book at dinner parties in the name of social research. But I do have some theories…
When you think of the word “exercise,” what comes to mind? For many people, it’s pain. Exercise has become a “price” we have to pay to eat. And we resent that. So the words “unhappy” and “exercise” already go hand in hand.
When you think of the word “calorie,” what comes to mind? For many people, it’s pain. It reminds them of their diet or of how their weight isn’t where they’d like it to be. It is a judgment of every bite they take. So the words “happy” and “calorie/s” are incongruous.
Of course, I understand that people use the word calorie to refer to exercise as well. Marketers of fitness programs and equipment boast about how many calories a particular workout will burn. But the underlying issue is that calories have become a currency of exchange – how much our food will “cost” us – either in terms of exercise or weight-gain.
Not only is this calories in/exercise out approach to weight-loss and weight management overly simplistic, it’s completely false. Any respected medical practitioner will concede that the human body is more than a simple caloric balance sheet.
The main problem, in my opinion, is that this mindset creates pain. It creates dysfunctional relationships with food and exercise. And it disconnects us from our bodies.
When we are connected to our bodies and motivated by the desire to feel good, we can eat food we enjoy without fear of some “penalty”. We can’t overeat because being too full doesn’t feel good. We don’t have to worry about food that “isn’t good for us” because if that were really true, our body wouldn’t want it in the first place.
Likewise, when we’re connected to our bodies and motivated by the desire to feel good, we can’t possibly be inactive. It just doesn’t feel good. Exercise has absolutely nothing at all to do with burning calories or losing weight – and it is a vital part of the physical experience. It’s just like taking a dog for a walk. A dog doesn’t care what size it is, but it most definitely wants to go for a walk, run around and play.
Happy Calories Don’t Count (neither does unhappy exercise) or
Unhappy Exercise Doesn’t Count (neither do happy calories), or
Unhappy Calories Count (so does happy exercise) or
Happy Exercise Counts (so do unhappy calories) –
no matter how you put it – it’s all the same concept.
Happy Calories™ and Happy Exercise™ are about redefining the weight-loss paradigm at its most basic, fundamental level. It’s about healing our relationships with food, exercise, our bodies and ourselves so that we can create free and happy life-affirming experiences that create sustainable results.