When you want to lost weight, someone may suggest to you
“eat less calories than you expend—that’s all you have to do!” Over the years,
I have noticed that the people who have said this to me either have never had
to lose weight or have some kind of freak metabolism that does whatever they
want it to. So I don’t trust them. ;)
A huge reason why I was not successful in losing weight
during my yo-yo dieting phase is that I focused solely on calories. I though
that if I ate 1200 calories or less each day, I would certainly need to lose
weight because I was using up more than that! Needless to say, when I did that,
I usually either stayed the same weight or even gained weight. A major problem
with my approach was that I believed that, as long as I stayed in my calorie
range, I could eat what I wanted. I paid no attention to nutrition and what
food could DO for my body.
Another problem with my approach is that I naturally
gravitate towards carbs. I could be a vegetarian if I could just eat bread all
day! Eating 1200 calories (not a healthy amount by the way, unless you are
already very tiny) of bread is a little different than eating 1200 calories of
lean protein, vegetables, and SOME carbs. It goes back to when you were in
elementary school and learned about the food pyramid—you’ve got to have some
balance!
I am by no means a nutritionist or doctor. But what I have
found the most success with is combining calorie (sort of) counting and
watching my macros.
What in the heck are “macros” you ask? Macronutrients are
what you actually get from the food that you eat (carbohydrates, protein, or
fat). The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for a balanced diet is as
follows:
Carbohydrates: 45-65%
Proteins: 10-35%
Fats: 20-35%
These percentages of macros are all fine and dandy if you
are not trying to lose weight. I recommend changing them up depending on your
needs. Unless you are trying to “bulk up,” I would suggest having your carbs on
the higher end if you are doing lots of cardio and having your protein on the
higher end if you are doing lots of strength exercises. This is MY
recommendation—you may see other things on other blogs and websites. Once
again, I am not a dietitian, nutritionist, etc. But if you buy a BeachBody
program, you will notice that the nutrition guides for each program are different.
For instance, my Piyo (which involves a lot of strengthening) nutrition guide
involves a lot of protein and little carbs. But my Insanity Max: 30 (which
involves a lot more cardio) nutrition guide involves more carbs than Piyo and
less protein than Piyo.
The NUMBER ONE recommendation that I have is to never
eliminate a macronutrient from your diet. Diets like Atkins or South Beach are
terrible for this reason. Your body was not made to function without a certain
nutrient and if you try to do so, your body is going to fight back (as it
should).
The NUMBER TWO (insert giggle here—I hang out with 5th
grade students all day…) recommendation I have is to make sure that the
motivational accounts you follow (on any kind of social media) have the same
goals that you do. I am not a body builder but I do look at body building
accounts from time to time and get jealous of all of the peanut butter and
carbs they are consuming. But then I look at their bodies and remember—that is
not my goal. Then I hit the yoga accounts and see all the lean bodies, lean
meats, and veggies and remember my goals!
The NUMBER THREE recommendation I have is that you always
need to put your health first. Do not make your intake of one macronutrient so
low or high that it’s going to have negative effects on your health. When I
tried to do South Beach at one point, I was not only a horrible person to be
around mood-wise, but I could barely function because I wasn’t providing my
body with energy and nutrients!
There are a lot of macro calculators on the internet. However,
a lot of them that I have found don’t give your percentages, which is kind of
annoying. One that I found that works pretty well is http://macronutrientcalculator.com/.
Also, if you use MyFitnessPal to track your food (which I highly suggest), you
can adjust your macros and keep track of those daily.
If you are curious to what percentages I use, here they are:
Carbohydrates: 40%
Proteins: 35%
Fats: 25%
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