I’ll provide you with an excellent example how to gage the nutritional calorie intake for weight management success. Here we look at counting calories as not an grueling chore for weight management success, but to understand the importance behind it.
When you get time, go out and buy a nutrition-calorie handbook. These books are in almost every bookshop, grocery and online store, etc. Here I teach you the basics of calorie counting. Although counting calories is not fun, it is important that this relationship to what is being put into the body is understood. Once you see the example I lay out, you’ll completely see the importance in having a basic understanding of calorie counting, why people do it and what this means for weight lose and maintenance success. I paint the worst case scenario in this example in which you “should not follow” to lose weight. But I believe will get my point across quite nicely.
Believe it or not, many people work their diets this way. This is why crash course diets don’t work, e.g., high protein, high carbohydrate, or high fat diets. They set you up for quick weight loss results and failure. The body requires balance for the mind, body and soul. The fact of the matter is your body requires specific types of food group percentages with daily activity and exercise to burn effectively. If you don’t balance out your proteins, carbohydrates, fats, fibers, vitamins and minerals on a daily basis, your body will get sick. I consider obesity allowing the body to get sick, “ill with greater disease risk. This is the body’s way of telling you you’re making it sick (a weight scale is a great feedback mechanism). Your body also requires exercise. For those that don’t remember 3500 calories equal approximately 1 pound.
For my example, the total calories in a Quarter Pounder with cheese…“I know you hate the math, but here it is” [30g fat (9cals/gram)=270cal, 28g Carbohydrate (4cals/g)=152cal, and 27g Protein (4 cals/g)=108cal] Total Quarter Pounder Calories =530.
There are 530 calories in a Quarter Pounder with cheese. If you want to lose weight the suggested calories to consume in a day are as follows:
In our example above, if you ate 3-4xquarter pounders with cheese at 530cal each, this would max an average woman’s daily food intake in a day and then some. Calorie intake averages all over the map for men and women. For the sake of argument let’s average this out. Women require ~1700 cal/day and men require ~2500 cal/day. Men could eat approximately 4 in a day before they came close to maxing total calories in a day. Sounds great eh! You could lose weight this way right! Not!
“Oh I know, now some of you are thinking, perfect,” I’ll just eat 2quarter pounders with cheese per day to lose weight because Marc said shows this would be under my daily calorie requirement. Although this may be true “I mentioned no such thing, I merely painted one example of many.” Although this fad diet example like “eating fresh” sub-sandwiches may work for the short-term, it will not work long term. The reason is you have not balanced your meals daily, nor have you learned to change your eating habits to balance out all you consume in life, throughout your lifetime.
The proportion of carbohydrates and proteins look fairly balanced looking at the quarter pounder with the exception of the fat composition. There is absolutely no balance in variety, very few vitamins, minerals or fiber. Most of these fast foods are processed with chemical names I can’t even pronounce (non-organic ingredients). If this were a daily diet, you’d be unsatisfied and eventually put on weight because of the processed chemicals in many of these foods and the artificially sweetened drinks you’d wash them down with. Within 5 days, your body would feel sick and you’d continue your old eating habits to feel better. Hence, behavior did not change, nor did your weight loss technique. A healthy consumption habit and daily exercise pays big dividends with balanced daily meals.
SEE The Full Story ”New Year’s Weight Loss Basic Secrets!”
Author: Marc T. Woodard, MBA, BS Exercise Science, USA Medical Services Officer, CPT, RET. 2007-2009 Copyright, All rights reserved. Mirror Athlete Enterprises Publishing @: www.mirrorathlete.com, Sign up for your free eNewsletter.
