I know a lot of people go to the gym and enjoy the rush that working out gives them, the way it boosts their mood, allows them to work off stress, etc... and it does all of that for me as well... but more than that - if I make a point to go to the gym everyday, I am way.way.way. less likely to eat off plan than I would otherwise!! It's like, I go to the gym, I feel so accomplished and I don't want to 'ruin' all that hard work by eating something bad.
This morning, I had every intention to go off plan. I have been craving chocolate cake - badly. In fact, I allowed myself a PIECE of cake 3 days ago. But again today, I was sitting on the couch thinking "wow, that was really good... I still have all the ingredients, I could easily just bake up a small molten chocolate lava cake, then go to bed - I'm SURE I will wake up early before work tonight and go to the gym today....." I even had the recipe pulled up on the computer to go make it. But instead, I told myself "Nah, I'll go to the gym now, bake the cake when I get home and then I don't have to worry about waking up early for work." ... So I went - initially, I was only going to do 30 minutes, but kept pushing and did 80 minutes of *hard* elliptical work. You know the kind of work out where you just lean over the handle bars when the timer is up to catch your gasping breaths...
Well, I just got home and any craving for that chocolate cake is COMPLETELY gone. I frankly don't even WANT it now....
Does the gym have these magical powers for anyone else?