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“How Many Calories Should I Eat?” Part 3

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How Many Calories Should I EatIn the last two articles in this series (catch up on Part 1 & Part 2 if you haven’t read them yet!) we spent a lot of time doing math and figuring out the science behind exactly how much you need to eat to stay alive and fuel your daily activities; maybe a little boring, but do you think Tony Stark just guessed how much energy it would take to power the Iron Man armor? Of course not, and neither should you!

I know what you’re thinking, “So now that we have all this data, how do we actually use it to our advantage?” Well, here is what I recommend you do next if you are serious about getting your eating habits in control and marching forward down the road to becoming a real life super-hero!

Keep Track of What You Eat!

If you’re looking for a starting point, this is it. Now, I have extolled the virtues of food journaling already, so I won’t beat you about the head again with why it is such an important tool… but starting first thing tomorrow, I want you to start keeping track of every thing you put in your mouth (seriously, everything.) You see, most people have no idea how much they actually eat! So I want you to take 5-7 days and record absolutely everything, so that at the end of the exercise you can calculate what your average daily caloric intake actually is. Now (this is important, so listen up), even though it might be difficult I want to you to make sure when you are reviewing your journal that you aren’t judging yourself or rationalizing your choices.

It doesn’t matter if Monday is Milton in accounting’s birthday and that is why you had that giant slice of tasty chocolate cake or that your pet goldfish, Jaws, died and you that’s why you powered down an entire carton of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food to numb the pain. I am not discounting that life often seems like it is conspiring against your health goals, but at this point in our Heroes Transformation we are just trying to understand our bodies, habits and what we need to adjust to reach our goals. The slippery slope of justifications will just make it easier for you to revert back into bad habits! We need to approach this as scientifically as possible. So just gather the data, don’t judge it.

Yet.

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“How Many Calories Should I Eat?” Part 2

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So last week in “How Many Calories Should I Eat?” Part One  we established the fact that a calorie is simply a unit of measurement, that is is neither good nor evil and that approximately 3500 of them equals about 1 pound of fat. While we didn’t get into discussing the quality of said calories, when broken down to its basest level it doesn’t matter for this part of the discussion; so…

“How Many Calories Should I Eat?”

How Many Calories Should I EatLike I said in the last installment, this is an extremely common question; don’t feel bad if you don’t know how to figure the answer out. That’s why I’m here for you!

The way you are going to figure this out is by calculating your Basal Metabolic Rate and then adjusting for how active you are. Yes, I know you probably just wanted me to give you a number and then call it a day, but that’s not how it works! Caloric intake is highly individualized; so yes, you are going to have to do a little math. So suck it up and let’s take a look at how we are going to calculate this mess!

First up is figuring out what that mildly ominous sounding Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is. The basic gist of the BMR is that it is tells you how many calories your body uses to stay alive… or in other words, how many calories your base bodily functions burn while you lounge around all day reading comic books or binge watching old TV series on Netflix. Unless you are bed-ridden this is only part of the number crunching we are going to have to do, but for desk-jockeys who don’t get much exercise, it’s a good starting point.  So what exactly is this magic formula? Luckily you don’t need to recall your college trigonometry class, because we have the Internet! *cue the angel’s choir*

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“How Many Calories Should I Eat?” Part 1

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How Many Calories Should I Eat?If there is one question health and fitness coaches hear more than any other it is – “How many calories should I eat?” (Followed closely by “Do I really have to watch what I eat and workout? Can’t I just take this supplement instead?” But that’s an entirely different article!)

It doesn’t matter if you hate shopping in the Big & Tall stores for your clothes, if you’re a mom wanting to lose that post-pregnancy weight, if you are tired of being the super skinny kid, if your doctor told you that you need to lose weight before your heart explodes, or if you woke up and just weren’t happy with what you saw in the mirror.

Whatever the rationale, you want to make a change and you’re not alone!  Look, every day thousands of people make the decision to start eating better and changing their weight… there’s a reason the diet industry is a $20 billion per year juggernaut, and there’s a reason why you’re here looking for tips on how to join our team of aspiring real-life superheroes! You see, the average “dieter” makes four attempts a year top lose weight. I will let that sink in… on average, people that want to lose weight make a concerted effort 4 times a year! Now, let’s assume that they all succeed on the 4th attempt (which is most definitely a bad call) that means 9 months of the year was spent doing it wrong! (And a good portion of that time was probably spent wasting time on fad diets)

Why?

Because those thousands of people have absolutely no clue what they’re doing! 

Don’t be discouraged, it’s perfectly understandable; there are so many variables to consider:

  • Is “low-carb” the way to go?
  • What about the food pyramid?
  • Is gluten really evil?
  • Why do donuts taste so good?
  • Do I eat 5 small meals a day or 2 huge ones?
  • What is this juice diet everyone is talking about?
  • Should I be taking supplements?
  • Can I eat before bed or not?
  • Do I count all of my calories?

Now we have talked about the basics of eating right in the past, but that is obviously is just the beginning. Today we’re going to dig a little deeper, but in the interest of not biting off more than we can chew (see what I did there?) we are going to limit the conversation to calories and what they mean to you!

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