A little health advice from one of NASCAR’s biggest stars.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a finely-tuned athlete, who over the course of his NASCAR career won 26 Cup Series races and a Busch Series (now Xfinity Series) championship. So he knows a thing or two about staying in shape.
And after hearing his method, I think I’m gonna take his advice.
Junior spoke on his podcast, The Dale Jr. Download, about his struggles with dieting. And of course we’ve all been there. Trying to count calories to make sure that we’re on track with our weight loss goals.
(I say we’ve all been there, but let’s be honest, I’ve never counted calories. I’m also definitely not one you should take health advice from. I’ve got the body of an athlete, but unfortunately that athlete is John Daly. Just hot wings and nicotine, baby).
But anyway, Dale Jr. was discussing his diet on his podcast, when he revealed that he refuses to count alcohol calories in his daily tracking:
“I don’t count drinking. And I still don’t. I’m not ready to give up beer.”
Junior’s co-host Mike Davis suggests that he doesn’t have to give up beer – he just needs to count the calories when he drinks one. But Junior’s not budging:
“No. You can’t possibly do that. It’s not gonna work for me. Yesterday I sat down and drank 8 beers over the course of the day. I’m not gonna count that.
If you’re drinking Bud Lights, that’s 96 calories a beer. So that’s 800 calories almost…that’s almost half of your allotted. I don’t counted.”
And Junior understands that it’s not like his body follows along with his calculations and just doesn’t count the calories – but he’s still not ready to stick to a diet that includes counting beer calories:
“I’m not disciplined…I’m lazy. I’m not gonna go in there and go, ‘Yep, there’s number three, let me type that one in. Ok number six, add that one.’
While I’m sitting there drinking beer listening to music sitting in the pool I’m not going to be typing in every beer each time I drink one.”
Of course Davis suggests what may seem like an obvious solution: Just put them all in at once when you’re done with them. But Junior points out the problem with that:
“At the end of the day after 8 beers I’m not messing with apps.”
And Junior says that if his calorie tracking app has a problem with the way he’s counting calories…well that’s just too bad:
“Me and this app have an understanding that I’m going to put the food in. I am not counting drinking. And if we got a problem, if that’s not gonna work, then I’m gonna delete this damn app and I’ll damn handle it myself.”
He also has a message for the app:
“Don’t mess with my beer.”
Of course Junior’s co-host never really agrees with his methodology (or his logic), but Junior says there’s no way he’s changing his mind:
“My damn diet, my rules. I’m still losing the weight.”
Damn right.
Of course Junior is well known for his love of beer, dating back to his days driving the #8 Budweiser car for DEI. At one point, Junior was even having so much beer delivered that distributors thought he was selling it – but he was really just drinking it with his friends.
But hey, if it’s good enough for Dale Jr., it’s good enough for me.
