Lexington, KY - OK, let's get real about trying to lose weight. No gimmicks, no miracle pill, no magic belly busting workout -
just the facts and some real, useful information that can help you find success in losing or not gaining weight.
The holidays are actually a great time to venture down this road. If you can learn and apply just a couple of good weight loss tips into your daily life now, during the weight gaining season, you will avoid being completely behind the eight ball when January comes around.
First, you have to understand what causes weight gain and weight loss, on a physiological level. It's calories in vs. calories out, that's it. If you consume fewer calories than you burn, you lose weight. If you consume more calories than you burn, you gain weight. Plain and simple.
If you give your body fewer calories (less energy) than it needs to carry out its daily functions, it will be forced to get energy from another source than the food you eat: the fat stored in your body from previous bouts of overeating. Your body has thousands of calories stored as fat throughout your body. That's why people can live for quite a long time with no food, as long as they have plenty of water.
When you feel hunger in your belly and feel like you are "starving," you're not really. So why does our body give us these strong signals telling us to "eat or die?" Most of that has to do with our brain and the sugar (glucose) it uses for energy.
Your brain's preferred source of energy is the sugar found in the bloodstream. When you go several hours without eating, the level of sugar in your blood drops. When this happens your body starts to get a little worried that the brain may not have enough available energy, so it sends out the rumbles in your stomach and gives you that feeling of being starved. Your body wants you to do something to get your blood sugar up so the brain has enough energy.
The problem is that when these hunger pangs kick in, we think we need to eat lots of food, but all you need is between 30 -
100 calories of an easily digestible sugar that can quickly get into the blood stream. When that happens, the hunger goes away.
When you feel hungry, make sure you have some low-calorie, sugar-based foods to get in your system about 15 minutes before you make the decision to order something too high in calories. A few examples would be a small bottle of G-2 Gatorade (40 Cals a bottle), a piece of hard candy (30 cals), a small banana (80 Cals), and a 90 or 100 Cal nutrition bar of some sort.
In addition to knowing how your hunger-and-eating system works, it is important to educate yourself on how many calories are in the foods that you like to eat. I think trying to completely change the foods you eat when you begin a serious diet is a bad idea. It is a better choice to familiarize yourself with the foods you already eat. Figure out how many calories are in some of your favorites and then figure out how you can still work some of these into your routine, without these items pushing you over the caloric edge.
Let's say you love burgers. Go online and check out the calories in ground beef vs. ground sirloin. Compare buns; some have 300 calories, some have 100. Check out the calories of cheese and mayo. Then figure out how you can build a better burger. You can still have the burger, but maybe now it's 250 Cals less. There is a lot of information on the web that can help you re-tool many of the foods you currently eat and reduce the amount of calories you consume.
Increased knowledge in how your body works and what you are eating is key to losing weight. You cannot get around the fact that you have to consume fewer calories than you use; how you want to do that is up to you. I believe a combination of eating a little less (200 -
400 Cals per day) and burning a little more via exercise (100 -
300 Cals) is the way to go.