Here’s a little fitness fact that you can store in your “gee-wiz” file.  How many of you have jumped on a treadmill or elliptical (or some other fitness machine) that counts calories burned during your workout?  I’m sure I’m not alone in loving the number that I see once my workout is done.  It feels SO good to know I just burned x amount of calories.  Now . . . how many of you have seen that awesome number and then thought, “Sweet!  I just burned 500 calories so I can definitely afford to eat that brownie sundae!”?  Please tell me I’m not alone on this one either! It is not unfamiliar for me to hear people tell me how they diligently exercise so hard, but can’t lose weight.

Well, truth be known, only approximately 20% of calories burned during an average workout are actually fat calories.  So, if I truly did burn 500 calories, then I can count on approximately 100 calories (20%) to be calories I burned from my fat stores.  I guess I can’t afford that brownie sundae after all!  (FYI . . . I did a quick internet search for calories contained in brownie sundaes and I saw numbers anywhere from 330 to 1,360.  Whoa!)

I tell you what!  I think we should be able to eat whatever we want if we put in the exercise time.  But, that’s just not the case.  If we want to keep the fat off or lose more fat, we must change our mentality when viewing the calories we’ve burned.

Let's not waste our exercise efforts! Let's do our best to make each workout count!