If fewer calories are good, then even fewer calories must be better, right?
I was eating very moderately today, and decided to chart my calories. I've never charted calories before. I've been watching sodium levels, and for the last month I've been watching fat, but today I started watching calories, and it was very interesting.
I learned online that for my height and body structure, if I want to lose weight, I should consume less than 2,200 calories per day. I didn't know how that translated into what I was actually doing. I knew that it wouldn't allow for fast food meals very often, for instance, but to translate that into daily living? I was clueless.
I watched what I ate today and counted the calories and fat. I'm a little hungry right now, but nothing scandalous. I was prepared to just go to sleep and not worry about it. When I'm tired enough, I'll choose sleep over eating.
But then I got to wondering. How many calories do we need to survive and still function, with mental reasoning intact, etc? We discussed a week ago that we do need some fat in our diets in order to stay healthy - after all, the brain is made of fat - so I got to thinking, and I just looked it up online.
For a woman of my height, a diet of 1500 calories a day would be the minimum for full function.
Hmmm. So while it's good to be watching calories, we don't want to be too hasty to get rid of them. I don't know about you, but if I'm losing my ability to think and function in a healthy way, that's no way I want to live.
I pulled up my eating chart and added it up. I've had 1200 calories today. Hey, that's awesome on the not-pigging-out scale, but it looks like I should go have a little snack. Never thought I'd be encouraging myself to go snack. Of course, tomorrow I'll do the math before bedtime. :)
5 comments:
Eating is a good thing. Anytime I go too low on the calories, my weight loss stalls.
I made myself a little tomato, cucumber, and cheese sandwich. :)
You're on the right track Tristi. It turns out we don't have to starve ourselves to lose a fair amount of weight each week and for me, the less I starved myself, the less I freaked out and ate a whole pizza a few days later.
Food is fuel for our bodies, too little fuel and you can't function and your body starts hanging on to whatever it can- like fat. And then after you start fueling again your body remembers and hangs on to any and every little calorie it can so when you try to lose weight next time it is even harder.
So think of it like the fuel tank of your car, you would not try to go 500+ miles on 1/4 tank of gas. No, you would fill it full enough to get you where you want to go. But by the same token, you would not keep filling the tank after the gas starts to spill on the ground, because that fuel does you no good.
Sometimes the more you eat the better off you are--especially if you are healthy. I've discovered that if I don't keep to around 1400 calories, I don't lose. PERIOD. So lame.
I went to this little seminar once where this guy helps people lose weight for a living.
He usually increases people's caloric intake at the beginning of the diet and also works with them for muscle buildup.
He also does the several meals a day thing with them. He said that if you are eating, I think, around 250 calories every three or four hours your body's metabolism is increasing and isn't storing those calories but using them.
So often with his diet plan and exercise plan you gain several pounds, but it's muscle. And THEN he decides the kinds of calories you should be taking in, keeps you on the exercise plan, and that's when you start losing the weight. The more muscle you have the more calories you need to consume. Muscle burns WAY more calories than fat. Even if you are just sitting in a chair you burn more with muscle.
Oh and if you are working hard on trying to build muscle don't forget the protein in your diet. You need plenty of that to help you get that muscle going.
Also, everyone has a different metabolism and body composition--the only way to really know how many calories you should be having a day is to go to a doctor. My brother-in-law actually went to a doctor and did all this testing stuff with his metabolism and other things to figure out what he needed to do to lose weight. I'll have to ask him what it was.
Is this a long enough reply? Okay. I'll be quiet now!!
Except for: YOU CAN DO THIS!
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