Diet vs. Exercise Royal Rumble
What happens when you put 3 fitness experts in a room with a pizza, two cheeseburgers, two servings of edible cancer sticks (aka “french fries”), 2 sodas, 2 donuts, 2 giant chocolate chip muffins, 1 huge frappacino, 2 espresso brownies, 1 protein bar, a treadmill, a stairclimber, and a kettlebell?
Well, you have the Ultimate Fat Loss Royal Rumble, of course. The battle of “Diet vs. Exercise”. And while we have it ALL on video, I want to tell you about in gory bite-by-bite “how to ruin your fat loss diet” detail.
It all starts with this strange idea I had while walking Bally the Dog. I thought, “Hey, I really need to show folks just how futile cardio is in the fight against a bad diet. But how can I do this…”
Then it hit me. We could show folks just how fast they could consume enormous amounts of calories that ruin fat loss programs. We’ll do a skit called 1000 calories in 1000 seconds. That’ll be perfect. But then I did the math. That’s 1000 calories in almost 17 minutes. Anyone can do that…and no one’s watching a 17 minute video of me eating.
So then I had a better idea. Why not compare how much “diet damage” can be done in a short amount of time PLUS just how FEW calories you can actually burn in hard exercise?”
I was willing to be the exercise subject, and sacrifice some hard work in order to get the message across…but I needed some Guinea Pigs to consume a ridiculous amount of food in a short amount of time. My first thought was Bally the Dog, he likes to eat, but then I’d probably have PETA after me…
So I thought, why not get nutrition expert Brad Pilon? PETA doesn’t care about him, and I know he can eat! Turns out Brad was down with the idea, so we got everything together and met in the gym late at night to film 5 episodes of Diet vs Exercise and test the limits of human (eating) performance!
Diet vs Exercise – Episode 1: Treadmill vs. Pizza & Soda
It doesn’t take a professional gambler to realize this was a mismatch from the start. First of all, it was two foods against one machine! You’ll love the video, but just to give you a quick rundown of the results, Diet scored a whopping 1100 calories to 43 calories victory over the Treadmill in just 3 minutes.
That’s right, Brad was able to consume over 1100 calories in pizza and soda in just 3 minutes, while I was only able to burn 43 calories while running at 10.5 mph for 3 minutes. It was no contest and we proved the point that “you can’t out-cardio a bad diet”.
Diet vs Exercise – Episode 2: The Stairmaster vs “Burger & Fries plus a Soda”
In this battle, we had men’s exercise expert John Barban wolf down as many calories from a beefy burger, fries, and soda meal as possible in just 3 minutes, while I got relegated to 3 minutes on an old-school stairmaster.
Couple of things to point out here…First, according to the stairmaster, climbing a flight of stairs only burns 3 calories! So the next time you read a politically correct article from some lame fitness expert telling you to “take the stairs instead of the elevator”, just realize that doesn’t even cover one french fry’s worth of calories! What a joke.
Second, I found the stairmaster exercise to be easier than running on the treadmill, yet in the same amount of time the stairmaster reported I burned 59 calories (that was 16 calories MORE than running at a harder pace – in my opinion). That just goes to show you that you CAN NOT trust the calorie counters.
So the winner again was DIET, by a score of about 1100 calories to 59 calories – again, delivering the knock out blow in just 3 minutes.
We actually filmed 3 more episodes, but I’ll wait for those to hit video. You should get a good laugh out of fitness and nutrition experts stuffing their faces while I suffer through sprints, kettlebell exercises, and the indignity of using a stairmaster. How embarrassing.
But the point of course is not just to entertain, but to get across this extremely important message and the BOTTOM LINE: You can’t out-train a bad fat loss diet.
And hey, if you have any ideas for future shows, please let me know.What foods have high-calorie counts that need to be exposed? What exercise and workout torture would you like to see me go through? Just let me know in the comments section below!
Your fat loss diet is the key to burning fat and losing inches,
Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Turbulence Training