Calorie Counting

I've been overweight ever since I was a little kid.
I remember at primary school, mum sent me to school with carrot and celery sticks in my lunch box, rabbit food I think is the correct term.
My best friend was a skinny kid whose mum gave her freddos and meringues every day. 

The world is so unfair!

Most of my life I've blamed genetics for my weight which although may be true, isn't an excuse to be fat the rest of my life.

I tried Lite n Easy about 5 years ago, I'm sure you've seen the ads. They drop off a weeks worth of frozen food and by eating the controlled portions of food, you lose weight. I was on the lowest calorie program, 1100cal a day, and after 8 weeks, I still hadn't lost weight, but I'd spent nearly $1000 on frozen food. 

I didn't understand the science behind weightloss, so I cracked the sads and came to terms with the fact that I would be fat forever.

When I first started losing weight this time around, I started by counting calories. For my weight and daily activity level, I calculated that I needed to consume 1200 calories to lose weight. After 3 weeks, I was getting impatient so I reduced my intake to 900 calories, and low and behold, I finally started to lose some weight. 

Health professionals will warn you not to eat less than 1100 calories a day or your body will go into starvation mode and won't burn fat. As long as you don't drop your calories by half or by any drastic measure, you should start to see results. Think of people who've had lap band surgery and can only consume a few hundred calories a day. Their bodies adjust and begin to work with what they're eating so their bodies will still burn fat.

To work out the right caloric intake for you, this link provides a great calculator :

CALORIE CALCULATOR

Counting calories is a great way to keep track of what you're eating and really understand how good or bad certain foods can be.

Calorie counting is the basis of many dieting programs like weight watchers because it works exactly inline with how your body works... consume less calories than you expend. 

So, I highly recommend downloading an app called myfitnesspal or visit their website where you can log your food everyday and it will count your calories. Start with the suggested daily amount for your current weight and daily activity level, and try sticking to it. If you find you're not losing weight, reduce the amount of calories by 100-200, and try that out for a month. 

Don't start too low to begin with . Firstly because losing weight too fast can make your skin really saggy, and trust me, you want to avoid this as it doesn't bounce back as easily as you'd like. Secondly, by dropping your usual intake drastically, you're starting on a crash diet that you may not be able to maintain, remember we're in this for the long haul!
So start a gradual decline until you find you're losing 0.5-1 kg a week.

If you find you aren't logging your food every day, still try and keep going for about a month, or until you have a basic understanding of how many calories are in each type of food.
It acts as a good deterrent when you know that a meat pie has 600 calories and can take up half of your recommended daily intake!

There are other apps that do the same thing but I find that my fitness pal is great. You can add friends and you can see what each other ate that day, and there are forums in the app too. You can also log your exercise and it will tell you how may calories you've burned.

My tip for today, if you find yourself waiting for the microwave, elevator or egg timer and no one is around? Do some squats! More on exercise next time.