Most of us have a better understanding about the food we consume. In other words, we know what types of food are good for us and what are bad. We have access to plenty of sources that can be used to identify the healthy food types. This will give you the opportunity to identify food types that can be consumed in order to lose weight with less hassle. Unfortunately, many people don’t do it in the right way. For example, they just consider about the amount of calories when selecting food to lose weight. You need to pay attention to many other factors, especially if you want to lose about 20 pounds within just one month.
We have different lifestyles and we need different amount of energy to manage the day to day activities. For instance, there are some people who don’t have time to exercise at all. Food is the only method available for them to lose weight. On the other hand, there are some active people. Obviously, the food these different groups of people should take will be different.
The main objective of eating right is to provide your body with the right amount of nutrients. From the studies, it has been identified that an average person needs about 2000 calories per day in order to maintain the energy levels. Therefore, you should not go way below this number, with the intention of losing weight. If you do, your body will feel deprived and you will have to face a wide range of health issues. This cannot be considered as a healthy diet plan.
If you are planning to lose weight by eating right food, you need to tweak the diet plan according to your specific needs and requirements. In other words, if you are burning 2000 calories per day, you need to eat food that contributes a total of 1900 calories. This will give you the opportunity to burn off more calories and lose weight at the end of the day.
Understand where the calories are coming from
Now let’s take a look at some of the most popular food items available among people in today’s world. Along with that, let’s understand how many calories are offered by each and every food item as well. Then it is possible to conclude where the calories are coming from and how to manage your calories.
- 22 grams of medium sized French fries provide 440 calories.
- A Big Mac Burger with cheese would provide around 650 calories.
- A donut can provide around 220 calories.
- A BBQ chicken pizza would contain around 1200 calories.
- A Cheese Bagel would contain around 350 calories.
It is also possible for you to find healthy food items that are high in calories. You can replace these high calorie junk food items with the high calorie healthy foods. Then you will be able to experience a lot of health benefits in the long run.
- A medium sized Avocado can provide around 125 calories.
- A dark chocolate chip provides around 225 calories.
- 11 grams of coconut whip cream provides 104 calories.
- 14 grams of olive oil provides 120 calories.
- A cup of whole fat yogurt offers around 200 calories.
In the meantime, let’s also take a look at the amount of calories offered by some of the healthy foods.
Managing your calories
Unfortunately, many people fail to continue such a diet plan for few weeks. Lack of motivation plays a major role behind the above mentioned fact. For example, many people don’t tend to eat healthy food. Instead, they try tasty food because of convenience. Most of the pre-processed fast foods that can be purchased from the market such as fries and burgers are unhealthy and they contain a lot of unhealthy fats. You need to stay away from junk food as much as possible and include fresh fruits and vegetables in your meals. Then it will not be a hard task for you to reach your weight loss goals.
Though there’s a huge hue and cry about the number of calories one could burn out whilst exercising in a gym the crux of the matter is that only 30% of the calories burned by our bodies account for any physical activity, whatever that would be.
It could be very light exercises to the most strenuous but the equation would be a few notches up or down without any major fluctuation in the quantum of calories expended during any exercise regime.
The balance 70% of calories our bodies burned are accounted by what we call as basal metabolic rate and that is the body running the various systems that are need to keep us alive and kicking.For our bodies to work 24 hours a day it needs quite a large quantum of energy and that is achieved by burning up calories which we supply by eating and consuming various types of food which are the ingredients needed to manufacture the fuel, which are the stored calories.
An example would be that people who are overweight could still perform well at the gym but they would put on whatever they shed by sticking to their perennial eating habits.Research and study shows that an average person would need to cut down on about 3,500 calories per week to lose just one pound which means an average of 500 calories per day to lose one pound in a week.
To achieve that you could run five miles every day or remove some food items from your daily diet to compensate that which would be a better proposition than the former. You may work out in a gym, or run five miles and then over estimate the quantum of calories burned out and come home and sit for a very hearty dinner on the assumption that you deserve it as you have really sweated it out to deserve that.
You may not be alone in that thought, we would all think alike as we have done enough and may be much more at the gym or by way of a good exercise regime but in realty your equation would be still be way off.You would not have shed enough calories to deserve that very large slice of pizza which you would heartily sit down to eat even washing it down with a fizzy drink which has been your favorite.
You would have done more harm than good so over estimating your workout and the quantum of calories burned is one major flaw most of us make.What we eat should be less than what we expend by way of calories only then could we shed those most important pounds that we have been always contemplating to do and achieve, if not the scale would also tilt in the wrong side and we would not be able to shed those pounds however much we would try.
After a few weeks of exercises and work out at the gym your body would adapt to the routine and when the routine becomes a regular feature your estimation of the quantum of calories that you burn out could not be the same as you would really do.
You would overestimate the exercises and when that happens you would start under estimating the quantity of food that you would consume to balance both but in reality you would be tilting the scale in the wrong side and not losing but gaining weight in the long term.
One study among many others done by the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness concluded that it is the case where participants were asked to work out at a gym and asked to eat the food laid on table equivalent to the amount of calories that they had expended.
All of them ate more than double of what they had expended at the gym, which happened because they under estimated the quantum of food because they over estimated their workout.
