Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

This question came up on the comments section of my entry:

Starling Fitness » What You Need To Know About Weight Watchers

This is a great help. Is there a maximum of exercise points you can reduce your total by in a day? I exercise for 45 minutes everyday and get my heartrate up to 144 bpm which qualifies me for the heavy category, but 9 extra points sounds like it’s too many for me to get just for an intense 45 minute workout. I know there is a 4 point bank cap, but is there a cap if you eat the points that day? Thank you for your response.

Andy Marris
West Allis, WI, USA

Andrew,

There are some mixed answers on this question. If you ask some Weight Watcher leaders, they will say that you should not exercise more than four Points a day. The logic behind that is they want to avoid exercise bulimia. Other leaders will say you should eat all your exercise Points so that your body doesn’t go into shock and stop losing weight.

The real answer here is that you should listen to your body. Each one of us is different and some people can exercise a lot, eat a lot and still lose weight. Others need to exercise a lot and keep their eating level low so that they will lose weight. Since we’re all different, the best advice is to experiment and see how your body reacts. If you eat all your Points and still lose weight, then you’ve found your answer. If not, then you may have to cut back on eating those extra exercise Points.

Good Luck,
Laura Moncur