Here’s how it works: every day we consume calories. Our body has a natural amount of calories that it burns simply by existing. This is often referred to as the resting metabolic rate. How many calories would your body burn (based on age, weight, etc) if you were to lie in bed all day? Then, of course, because most of us are at least somewhat active (ie we get out of bed and walk to the car, go to the coffee room at work, etc), the body burns additional calories for those activities. If we are very active, exercise regularly and/or are athletes, our bodies burn even more calories. So those are our calories out.
Next, there are the calories we take in. Every bit of food we eat has a calorie number associated with it. Yes, we’re often concerned about fat content and carbs and other things for other reasons, but when it comes down to it it is the calories that count in terms of weight gain and loss.
At the end of the day, if our calories out equal more than our calories in, we’re working towards burning off weight. It takes a deficit of 3500 calories to burn off one pound. This is why it is only recommended that we lose about a pound a week, or about a 500 calorie deficit each day.
The problem with trying to lose weight by focusing on these numbers is that we often over estimate the amount of calories we burn and under estimate the amount of calories we eat during our everyday lives. In order to lose weight, one must truly focus on the number of calories he or she is consuming. We must also make sure that we are being honest with ourselves when it comes to the amount of calories we ingest.
Portion size is something that really throws us off when it comes to weight loss. Americans especially have portion sizes that are much larger than what they should be. A piece of meat, for example, should only be the size of our palm and a serving of chips is only about 10-15 chips. We can’t eat the whole bag and assume we’re keeping up with the portion size and getting the amount of calories on the back of the bag. In fact, some beverages even have more than one serving, so while you may think that drinking that bottle of fruit juice is only 150 calories, what may actually be happening is that you’re having 2-3 servings or 450 calories. That makes a big difference at the end of the day when you’re calculating calories in and calories out.
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