If I eat really crappy food, like McDonald’s, before work where I walk upwards of 6 miles a day or more, I’m obviously burning off some of the bad stuff in the food, but why? What makes walking burn off and lower the consequences of eating really bad food?
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Your body needs a balanced mix of many different types of nutrients. “Macro” nutrients, which includes fats, carbohydrates, and proteins, are the ones that give you energy and build all the components your body needs to maintain itself. You need a large amount of macro nutrients every day, and this amount depends on how much physical activity you do. “Micro” nutrients, which includes vitamins and minerals, are also essential to being healthy, but the amount you need doesn’t change much depending on how much you exercise.
The reason people say McDonald’s is “bad” food is because it provides an unbalanced mix of nutrients. There are too little micro nutrients for the amount of macro nutrients it offers. If you maintain an average level of physical activity and eat only McDonald’s, then you will get too much macro nutrients, which makes you gain weight, and at the same time you’ll get too little micro nutrients, which also hurts your health.
On the other hand, if you do a large amount of physical activity like walking 6 miles every day, then that effectively burns off a lot of calories, which means the amount of macro nutrients you need is much higher than average. In that case, your nutritional requirements actually gets closer the nutritional balance that McDonald’s provides. You’ll make up for the lack of micro nutrients by eating more food in general, and the overabundance of macro nutrients doesn’t become an issue because your physical activity consumes it all.
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