Reducing Exercise: Can I Still Burn the Fat?

I have recently encountered a situation in my personal life which has put sudden and great demands on my time and attention. Having looked closely at where I spend my time, I realised that a large proportion of it is spent on exercise. I'm usually spending about 10 hours a week on exercise. That's not to say that I am physically spending 10 hours doing the exercise, just that when you take into account time to get to the gym, shower, get changed etc, that it all adds up to that amount of time taken out of my week.

I have to cut it back. This is painful for me as over the last few months I have been slowly increasing my exercise just to maintain my fat loss and it has grown into a healthy lifestyle that I enjoy. If I cut back now that it going to hurt my progress and it will also weaken the exercise habit which could have long term repercussions. But the alternative is worse, so I have to figure out a way to deal with it. I recalculated my calorie requirements based on a lower activity level and if I want to continue with my target deficit of 500 calories a day which would allow me to lose a maximum of 1lb a week, then I need to reduce the calories I eat from 1650 to 1500 a day. Ouch!

This is a major nuisance for me, because over the last few months I have tweaked all my recipes to the point where they are all a very similar number of calories so I can just mix and match as I please and my calories for the day work out about right. I have hundreds of recipes, and I'm going to have to tweak them all over again. *Bashes head against desk in frustration*

I believe that life sends us these little trials in order to test us, and there must be something good to come out of it. So I had a look at my food and asked myself the question, "how can I eat less calories and not go hungry?". The answer was simple - eat better quality food. Ever since starting up this plan I knew that my food was not perfectly 'clean'. There's still too much fat, especially saturated fat, still too much sugar and other simple carbs. I had a look through some of my recipes and found that I could reduce the calories without reducing the amount of food in any way by being more strict with the extras such as dressings and sauces.

So the downside is that I have to spend time re-doing these recipes but I'm going to just take it a week at a time, doing just the ones I need for that week. But the upside is that this forces me to eat cleaner. Now what happens if in a few months from now I resolve my personal situation and find that I have more time for the gym again? Then I can exercise more and lose the fat even more easily than I do now. I have a feeling I'll reach my target weight before I get my time back but either way, it's always a good thing to be eating more healthily than before.