Stop starving!

Here's the thing, most of us are totally clueless about how to effectively lose weight. We honestly think it takes starvation. But that's not the case. The problem is perception. We live in society that teaches that enormous portion sizes are normal, and so when we see a truly normal portion size we think we are being starved. It seems like a joke. We start to believe food is the enemy. It's not! Food is good for you.

Changing your eating habits starts with changing your perception. Seeing the world through smaller glasses (and bowls, and plates). This however, does not mean barely eating anything. When I started this I set up my caloric needs through a program but you can figure it out on your own. You need to know your BMR, your basal metabolic rate. This will tell you how many calories your body burns just existing every day. That means if you woke up and laid around all day. Here is a nifty calculator for you http://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmr-calculator

Mine is 1601. That means if I did nothing all day I could still eat 1600 calories and not gain weight.

To lose one pound a week you need a calorie deficit of 500 calories per day for 7 days. This can be done through working out or calorie cutting. But remember it's not a good idea to cut your calories below 1200. You need food to survive, for your brain to function, for your body to keep moving and working. So what's the magic number??

Seriously the easiest way to figure that out is to use some sort of weight loss program. I use My Fitness Pal. It is easy and the numbers are calculated for me. I don't have to guess at all. I set my goal for 1 /12 pounds per week so I get 1410 calories per day, this means if I do nothing all week, just my normal daily stuff, I will lose 1 1/2 pounds per week just by eating 1410 calories.

But I love to work out! So I have looked up calorie burn for my favorite activities and I use an app to help estimate calorie burn, I then input this into My Fitness Pal and it recalculates my calories based on this activity. I have found that I can consume these extra calories I burned and still lose weight.

It is super tempting to leave some of those burned calories, but if you are already at something dramatic like 1200 calories a day, don't do it. You are asking for problems. Your body needs fuel, it needs you to feed it. If you burn it you can eat it. Just make sure you are eating healthy foods, not fatty ones. And if you are at a higher calorie count like 1410 it is ok to leave a few excess calories from working out and not re-eat all of them, but do your best.

For instance, there have been days I burned over 1000 calories working out, but I honestly couldn't eat all that food. I wasn't hungry enough. So I ate what I could and had a huge deficit. Sometimes that will happen. Just be sure you are taking supplements and drinking lots of water. Pay attention to your body.

Starving yourself will only lead to burn out and exhaustion. If you don't eat enough you will be too tired to work out. Think of food as fuel for your body. Working out is to shape and transform your body while calories restriction is for weight loss. Too much restriction will not help. Please eat!