I've been asked this a lot in person too, not just on here. So I thought I would actually write about it. Maybe some of my experience can help someone else. If you don't need to lose weight, feel free to skip this post.
First, I don't want to be accused of plagiarism, so I need to mention that much of what I have learned about weight loss I learned from the book "Optimal Health Revolution" by Dr Duke Johnson. If you are interested in life long health and reducing your risk for heart disease, cancer and diabetes, andnot just weight loss, I highly recommend that book.
Ok...on with the topic at hand. Losing weight is simple really, if you understand how it all works. A calorie is a unit of energy. If you eat more "energy" then your body uses, your body stores the extra as fat and you gain weight. If you eat less "energy" then your body uses, then your body uses it's stored energy (fat) and you lose weight. So the only real trick to losing weight is knowing how much "energy" your body needs, and keeping track of what you give it.
1. How many calories should you eat. It's really simple. Take your weight x 10 if you are female, or 11 if you are male x your activity level.
Activity Level:
Sedentary - 1.25
Lightly avtive - 1.5
Moderately active - 1.65
Highly active - 2
Exceptionally active (athlete in training) - 2.3
So, lets figure this out for a 200 lb female with a desk job who doesn't get any other exercise. 200 x 10 x 1.25 = 2500. So she would need 2500 calories to maintain her weight. So, go ahead, open up the calculator on your computer and figure out your calorie number. Ok, you got it? Now...
1 lb = 3500 calories. So to lose 1 to 2 lbs a week, you need to subtract 500 to 1000 calories a day from that number. So our person in the example above would need to eat 1500 calories a day for an average weight loss of 2 lbs per week. Remember though...if she exercises at all, muscle weighs more then fat. So it is a good idea to keep track of measurements too, not just weight in order to track progress. Also, remember to re-calculate your calorie need every 10 to 15 lbs you lose.
Part 2....Track what you eat. Most people can not guess within 500 calories of how much they actually eat. I recommend making (and using) an account with
Spark People. It's free. They have a data base that is really increadible with nutrition info on everything! You can pick what you had for breakfast and add it to your day and it will track calories, fat, protein, and any other nutrient you want it too. That handfull of chocolate chips you are eating at the computer while checking the blogs...that counts! Your pop which is basically sugar, carbonated water, and chemicles....that counts too. Using spark people to track calories and nutrients really helped me to see what was in the food I eat. From that, I now think about what I eat. You can eat at Taco Bell and still track calories. Spark People has nutrition info for meals at most fast food resteraunts. So...go over there and make yourself an account...AND USE IT! Spark people will also make recomendations on how much carbs, fat and protein you should have and will track your progress for you. All you have to do is be honest about what you ate and how much you ate. (For reference...3 oz of meat is about the size of a deck of cards)
One other thing that really helped me is
0 calorie foods. Everyone knows that if you eat celery, your body burns more calories in the process of digesting it then what the celery originally contained. What most people don't know is there is a whole list of foods similor to that. The above link is a list of foods that if you eat them, all of the calories they contain are burned in the process of digestion! Some of them, like celery, burn more calories then they contain.
So...how am I losing weight? I figured out how many calories my body uses and I am eating about 1000 calories a day less then that. If I am hungry or have the munchies, I try to snack on foods from th 0 calorie food list. Originally, I was also exercising twice a day, every day. I got up at 5 am to get a workout in before the kids woke up, and then I got a 2nd workout in at nap time. I need to get back on track with the exercise as I have slacked over the last couple weeks. Anyway... all that was to explain the basics of losing weight. In action...here is a typical daily meal plan for me.
Breakfast:
Go Lean cereal with banana and flaxseed added
Snack: Fruit
Lunch: Meal replacement bar
Snack: Snack bar
Snack: Fresh veggies
Dinner: Chicken breast
Brown rice
butter (for my rice)
Some sort of cooked vegetable
Fruit
Snack : snack bar
Anyway...I hope this information can be helpful to some of my blog readers. To those of you who were just curious, That's how I am losing weight. To those of you who need to lose weight, it is easier then it sounds. Once you track calories for a few days, or a week, you have a good enough idea of what is in your food that you don't need to track it anymore...although tracking it does help keep you from cheating. Good luck. If you use some of the methods mentioned and have success with it, let me know!
PS. A couple other things I thought of after writing this. Try to not go more then 2 hours during the day without some sort of snack or meal. If you are cutting calories and go too long between meals, your body will switch into starvation mode and try to hold onto everything it has. Also, if you have a high protein bedtime snack, the protein helps your body to continue metabolizing in your sleep instead of shutting down while you sleep.
Titus, Raquelle, and their cousins Lily, and Mikayla playing on our new climber.
Titus, Raquelle, and their cousins Lily, and Mikayla playing on our new climber.
