I believe my success in my weight-loss journey was directly enhanced by breaking things down to the fact that everything hinges on a very simple mathematical equation: Calories In, Calories Out. To lose weight you simply need to burn more calories than you are consuming. To gain weight you need to do just the opposite. Knowing that my success or failure in meeting my goals could be boiled down to this simple concept helped me to keep my focus. It's simply a numbers game. I believe it was Jillian Michaels from whom I first learned this concept.
There are 3500 calories in a pound of body fat. To lose a pound every week, you simply need to burn 500 more calories each day than you are eating (and drinking!). If you burn an extra 1000 calories per day, you can lose 2 pounds every week. This is what is called a calorie deficit.
Don't forget that you burn calories every day simply by being alive. Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) reflects how many calories you would burn in a day by doing nothing--just staying in bed all day. Here is a link to a BMR calculator to help you figure out your own: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/. If you'd like the actual formula for calculating your BMR, here it is:
English BMR Formula
Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) - ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in year )
So, figuring out your total "Calories Out" for the day (the energy you burn off) means ADDING any extra calorie-burning activities on top of this base number. Obviously, the more you keep moving throughout the day and keep your heart rate up, the more calories you will burn.
To calculate your "Calories In" you will need to start keeping a food diary. And you need to be brutally honest--don't leave things out or underestimate your portion sizes! If you are not completely honest, here, the only person you are cheating is yourself. There are lots of tools out there for helping you figure out and keep track of the amounts of calories in the foods you eat. Years ago I found this site particularly useful: http://www.fitday.com/. What I liked about it was that it also provided me with a unique look at the actual vitamins and minerals that I was getting (or not getting) from my food choices. I could look at the page and realize I was not getting enough "Vitamin K" or enough "Zinc" in my diet, and start looking for what kinds of foods included those nutrients.
As I began to track my food choices, I instantly started making more intentional decisions about what to eat. Becoming more conscious of the number of calories in certain foods led me to ask myself how much it was worth it to me to actually consume them, and then make my choices accordingly. If I had a certain calorie allotment for the day, I wanted to be very discerning and stingy with how I was going to "spend" my calories. I always want to be sure I'm getting the most bang for my buck! I began to see how rethinking the stop for a fast-food breakfast sandwich on the way to work would allow me to enjoy more of my calories later in the day if I decided to pass it up.
To be honest, I don't actively keep a food diary now, nor have I for maybe the last year and a half or more. I still pay attention to the calorie and nutritional content of foods, but my previous discipline and practice of keeping a food diary for an extended period of time (which included time prior to my decision to lose 50 pounds) has allowed me to fall into a more natural rhythm with food consumption. However, there are definitely times when I temporarily need to pay more focused attention to my "Calories In"--for instance when I find myself at another "plateau" in my weight loss, when my typical routine has been disrupted enough that I find myself making less-than-ideal food choices on a more regular basis, or when there is a dramatic decrease in my "Calories Out" (like when a recent knee injury hindered my usual work out routine for an extended period of time).
The best tip I have to offer with regards to keeping your "Calories In" within a manageable range towards helping you to achieve your weight-related goals is to avoid eating out as much as possible. The more control you have over the food you are eating correlates strongly with the more control you maintain over the "Calories In" portion of the above equation. This was the number one change that I know had the most dramatic impact on my weight loss. Regularly eating out at restaurants for lunch and/or dinner was very much the norm for me. Now, by eating at home I can usually have the exact same meal for a lot less calories when I make sure to prepare it in a healthy manner, make healthier ingredient substitutions as needed, and stick to a reasonable serving size. In no way has my weight-loss journey included a "diet" that I don't fully enjoy. Quite the opposite: I have never been able to enjoy food as much as I have over the last couple of years! Part of it is that now I am finally eating REAL food--not the over-processed stuff that has been stripped of much of its nutritional value and re-stuffed with foreign additives, preservatives and other miscellaneous chemical ingredients.
I think that's a wrap for today's math lesson!
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