I am all about exercising and eating right for living's sake.
Just living right for the sake of living right.
It feels good.
We will live longer.
We will live better.
It is why we were given these bodies to begin with -- to care for them.
However, personal philosophies aside, it doesn’t erase the fact that some of us want and NEED to lose some weight. How exactly do we go about doing that?
Let’s talk numbers:
The amount of calories in one pound is 3,500.
If you want to lose one pound in a week, you essentially have to reduce your caloric intake by 3,500 calories per week, right? So, since their are seven days in the week it makes this very easy cheesy:
3,500 ÷ 7 = 500
To lose one pound a week you need to reduce your calories by 500 a day.
That’s like not eating
one banana,
a tablespoon of peanut butter,
2 eggs,
and a small bowl of Kashi cereal with a bit of soy milk.
OR
by not eating one honkin’ slice of chocolate cake.
Take your pick.
Now, let’s play around a bit.
Wanna lose:
2 lbs per week? Reduce by 1,000 a day (yowsers! This is tough for me)
1.5 lbs per week? Reduce by 750 calories a day
1 lb per week? Reduce by 500 calories a day
.5 lb per week? Reduce by 250 per day
Muy importante: I’ll say this again when it comes to slashing and counting calories: DO NOT GO UNDER 1,200 CALORIES PER DAY. Yes, you want to lose some weight, but you also need to live, my friend. Your body has a stressful job to face every day. Thinking, breathing, circulating, replenishing, digesting -- all of that requires energy. In other words, food. Your body needs food to lose weight the right way. Starvation is just a mode your body does not like and it will rebel in more ways than one.
So, there you have the numbers. The math, however, is the easy part. The actually doing it is what is tricky :)
For more on weight loss and counting calories:
Figuring Out Your Calories: Round 1
I've Got Some Explaining To Do: Round 2
Counting Calories: Round 3 **This is the method I use.
To Count or Not to Count?
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5 comments:
I have to tell you I pulled a "Trainer Momma" today- I scored a BOATLOAD of protein bars on a clearance shelf each being .25 or .50 a piece!! Scoooooooooore!!
So if I wanted to lose a pound a week, I could consume 1200 calories per day and then burn 500 calories daily through exercise?
You would take your BMR -500 weight loss cals + workout cals = total.
So let's say your BMR is 1600 minus 500 for the weight loss -- that leaves you with 1100. Then you work out for 30 minutes and burn around 250. That brings you back to 1350 -- safe zone and you can still lose the weight.
Check out the additional links at the end of the post -- specifically the "I've Got Some Explaining To Do: Round 2".
This gets kinda number crazy, just hang in there!
WELL that made it nice and easy!!
im STILL at 145 lbs and probably will be forever which is TOTALLY FINE since in 8 weeks ive dropped my body fat % from 29.7 to 24%--BOOYAH!!! i finally had to learn to GET OFF THE DUMB SCALE and measure other things like body fat, and inches (which i am STILL losing)and sliding down from a size 10 to 8 to now 6 and some 4's--
I am so confused. Mine came out to lower than 1,200 calories per day so i increased it to only .5 per week. but i am still confused on how i am supposed to eat with only this amount in calories...
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