HOW MANY CALORIES DO I NEED?

If you haven’t seen the challenge, check it out here: If You Bite It, Write It!

Join in, it starts today! This is an opportunity to find out the truth about how many calories you eat each day and the nutritional content of that food.

I am using LoseIt.com, but you can use any website, any phone app, or pen and paper. You can search online for the calorie count of any food or purchase a paperback book at the bookstore that lists thousands of foods including restaurants.

It takes about 15 calories per pound to maintain your weight. So if you weigh 200 lbs and eat 3000 calories a day you will do a great job of maintaining your weight, but you won’t lose weight.

If your goal is to lose weight, cut your caloric intake to between 7-10 calories per lb. So if you weigh 200 lbs, eat between 1400-2000 calories per day. Obviously, if you eat 1400-1500 calories per day you will lose weight much faster than if you eat 2000 calories per day.

Keep in mind that you need to recalculate your caloric intake as you lose weight. I recommend recalculating every 10 lbs. So when you hit 190 lbs you would need to eat 2850 calories (15 per lb) to maintain, and 1330 – 1900 (7-10 per lb) to lose. It is not wise to ever go below 1200 calories per day. As you get closer to your weight goal you may notice that the weight comes off slower because you don’t have the large caloric deficit that you had when you were heavier.

Are you joining the challenge? What mode of tracking are you going to use? Is your goal to learn how much and what you are eating or is it to lose weight?

IF YOU BITE IT, WRITE IT!

Is one of your goals this year in any way related to your health…lose weight, eat less, eat more fruits and veggies, exercise more?

Do you not have a clue how many calories you eat each day and you’d like to know?

If so, join me in this seven day challenge: IF YOU BITE IT, WRITE IT!

For seven days write down everything, yes every single thing, that you put in your mouth. Every almond, every cracker, every M&M, every grape, every taste of food as you are cooking…EVERYTHING!!

It’s been proven that most of us consume more calories than we think we do. If you have no idea how many calories you eat each day, this is a great way to find out. Don’t change your eating habits, just write down everything you eat. If you do it in an online program it will figure the calories for you.

If you do have an idea of how many calories you consume and want to cut it back or change the ratio of protein or fruits and veggies in your diet logging your intake is an excellent way to do that. Most of us underestimate how much we eat. Tracking it in written form shows the cold hard truth.

Losing weight is a simple formula of calories in, calories out. You must expend (calories out) more calories than you take in, creating a deficit and forcing your body to burn stored fat for energy. The more fat used, the more weight you lose!

Many studies have proven that those who record everything they eat lose more weight. My own experience is that recording every single bite I eat sometimes prevents me from eating something because I don’t want to look it up and write it down, or I don’t want to see it on my daily log. If I also have a predetermined number of calories allotted for the day it helps me make better food choices. Better choices means I get to eat more food while consuming less calories.

So here’s the challenge…if you eat it, write it down. Simple as that. Can you do it for seven days?

You can use pencil and paper or one of many websites available or an app for your phone.

I will use www.LoseIt.com which allows me to make my entries from either my computer or my phone. If you choose this site as well, we can connect. You can find me on www.LoseIt.com by my email, mhobbs2001@gmail.com. This site also allows you to record any form of exercise.

Other good websites and apps include Fitday.com. Livestrong.com, CalorieCounter.com. It doesn’t matter which one you choose, just that you do choose one!

Today choose your method of recording. Tomorrow, Jan 9^th, 2012, we start tracking. I will post my progress and experience and look forward to hearing your comments and experience as well.