Why you need to EAT to lose weight (and LIVE)!

Yes, you read that correctly.  You need to eat to lose weight, and you need to eat often.  I have come across several blogs and post about women wanting to lose weight, so they decided they are going to fast or severly restrict their caloric intake.  Fasting is fine, if it is for the right reasons, like when you fast to become closer to God, but fasting can cause weight gain, severe health problems, and even death.

Every individual has a basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is the amount of calories a person needs to eat on a daily basis for bodily functions, such as digestion of food, blood circulation, and breathing.  Using a special formula, everyone can find out their BMR.  Click this link to use the BMR calculator.  To learn more about BMR, metabolism, and other items that may affect your weight, click this link.  For example, my BMR is 1,645 calories.  This means, I have to eat 1,645 calories a day to survive.  As your age goes up and your weight goes up or down, your BMR will change, although these changes will be small.

So, when you fast, your body will use the stored fat for energy, which will cause weight loss, and it can be dramatic for some people.  This is great, right?  Absolutely, not.  After fasting, individuals will begin to eat normally again.  Since these individuals have been fasting, their bodies will go into starvation mode, and when they start eating again, their body will store most of the calories that they eat because their body does not know when it is going to get food again, which leads to weight gain.

The best way to lose weight healthily is to create a calorie deficit by eating the right kinds of foods, cutting calories, and exercising.  This means eating whole wheats, vegetables, fruits, and lean meats, while drinking water, milk, and other low calorie/sugar drinks, such as Powerade Zero.  In addition to eating healthy, you need to create a calorie deficit.  This means that the calories you eat in addition to the calories you burn during exercise should be less than the calories you need to maintain your current weight.  To find out how many calories you need to maintain your current weight, click this link.  This link has many other calculators and tips for weight loss and staying healthy.

The main thing to remember is that 1 pound is equal to 3,500 calories, so to lose a pound a week, you need to create a calorie deficit of 3,500 calories.  If you want to lose 2 lbs a week, you need to create a calorie deficit of 7,000 calories. 

Black Bottoms - yummy!

These cupcakes were super delicious, and the cream cheese, chocolate chip, chocolate cupcake mixture blended so well together!  They were a little harder to make than normal cupcakes (especially since I did not have an electric handheld mixer to mix the cream cheese topping together with)!  Other than that, I give these two thumbs up for taste, calorie count, and cuteness!

The recipe can be found here, on the Woman's Day website!  The original recipe called for mini cupcakes, but I made normal size ones, so I only made 2.5 dozen cupcakes instead of 5 dozen, and all the nutritional information doubled for my recipe, so they were 150 calories per cupcake, but well worth it!

If I could make one suggestion, it would be to almost double the cream cheese topping portion of the recipe, because I did run out of it before I ran out of the chocolate cupcake mix, and I was not using as much as the recipe called for.

Week 4 Journals & Measurements!

So, for week 4, I had a calorie deficit of 7,907, even though I went over my 1800 calorie limit on Saturday. 



For this past week, my weight has fluctuated quite a bit.  In fact, it is still fluctuating, and probably will continue to do so for the next week or so, until I finish my antibiotics.  I recently had to go onto antibiotics for an infection in my right hand (which is healing tremendously - Thank you Lord!), but antibiotics can cause some weight gain and fluctuations in weight because it can destroy the good and bad bacteria in our body, slow metabolism, and cause retention of fat cells.  So, for now I will have to deal with these weight fluctuations and just get back on the grind when I come off my antibiotics.

So, I have lost a total of 10 inches from my body in 4 weeks.  All of my measurements are decreasing (which is awesome!), and my BMI is slowly going down, too!

I have learned a lot over the past 4 weeks of my life.  I found out that I can eat what I want and still lose weight.  I have eaten everything from pizza, to cheese, to ice cream, to cookies & muffins.  In addition, I allow myself to cheat on one day out of the week, so that I never feel like I am missing out on my favorite foods.  I also found out that I do not have to kill myself in the gym to burn calories or lose weight.

For now, I am very happy with my progress.  I am steadily losing weight and inches, I do not feel starved or hungry, and I have a ton of energy now that I did not have when I started!

Food Journal, Day 1, March 28, 2011 *Lost another pound :)*

So, I wanted to post this, just so everyone can see how I am tracking my food intake on a daily basis.  I will not post these everyday, but this is my format for my spreadsheet.  It makes it super easy to calculate my totals because the spreadsheet enters the formulas for me!

As you can see, my calorie intake for yesterday was 1736.5, which is great because my calories needed to maintain my weight is in the 2300's, so that creates a deficit of over 600 calories.  This along with the walking that I am doing should help me to lose the 2 lbs a week that I want to lose, and hopefully I will lose even more than that!

Exercise Journal for 3-21 to 3-27

So, I created spreadsheets for everything to help me with my weight loss and exercise.  I have one spreadsheet for my exercise journal, one for my food journal, one for my calorie deficit, and one for all the nutritional information of the foods that I eat on a regular basis.  This will help me tremendously with my journey, and it makes it exciting for me.  I get super excited to enter my information into the spreadsheet and see how many calories I have burned, how many calories I have eaten, and what my deficit is for the day.

Well, for week 1, as you can see in the spreadsheet, I walked a total of 10.8 miles, burned around 2,180 calories, and lost 2.6 lbs.  YAY!  I am so stoked to continue my journey and to continue tracking my progress.

I have started creating my meal plans, and I have goals to eat in between 1200 and 1800 calories a day, depending on the day and how much I exercise.  In addition, I am using several different websites to help me with how many calories I need a day to maintain my weight, how many calories I burn during exercise (I do have a heart rate monitor that I also use during exercise to track my calorie burn), and the nutritional information for all foods that do not have this information on the labels.  If any of you would like to know these websites, just let me know.

Today, I have already had a great breakfast!  I enjoyed coffee, cinnamon & spice oatmeal, and a cup of strawberry halves.

This breakfast was only 228 calories, very filling, and extremely delicious.  In addition, I have cube steak in the crock pot, and I will be adding potatoes, corn, onions, and carrots to it for supper.  Most likely, I will also cook broccoli, so that I will have a very filling supper, with plenty of great veggies.

Add color to your plate!

http://www.eatright.org/nnm/

The foods you eat on a daily basis should not be colorless or dark and dreary.  Turn your plate into a rainbow by adding plenty of colorful fruits and vegetables to your diet.  I just found out that March is National Nutrition Month.  The American Dietetic Association sponsors this nutritional campaign every March, and this month is “Eat Right with Color,” (ADA, 2011, para. 1).



http://www.qualitativelife.com/rawfood/2011/01/30/raw-food-delicious/colorful-vegetables-and-fruits/?lang=it

It can be very easy to add plenty of colorful fruits and vegetables to your diet, and it is very beneficial to your health.  Colorful foods are packed with minerals, nutrients, vitamins, and antioxidants that are necessary for a healthy body, mind, and lifestyle!


http://mysweetyroom.onsugar.com/Fruits-good-Skin-1636120

These fruits and vegetables can be added to your day by eating them as snacks, dessert, side dishes, or main meals.  Look for the opportunity to add an extra fruit or vegetable to your diet, and when you are shopping, always add one fruit or vegetable to your basket that you have never tried before!

RED

Apples

Bell Peppers

Guava

Potatoes

Rhubarb

Strawberries

Tomato

Watermelon

ORANGE

Apricots

Carrots

Cantaloupe

Oranges

Peaches

Pumpkin

Squash

Tangerines

YELLOW

Bananas

Corn

Honeydew Melon

Lemon

Pineapple

Squash

GREEN

Apples

Avocado

Broccoli

Kiwi

Lettuce

Peas

Spinach

BLUE / PURPLE

Blackberries

Blueberries

Cabbage

Eggplant

Grapes

Pomegranates

References

American Dietetic Association (ADA). (2011). National Nutrition Month 2011. Retrieved from http://www.eatright.org/nnm/

Freerice.com

Found this new awesome site that donates 10 grains of rice for every question you answer correctly.  They have different subjects, like Math, English, and Languages.  So, not only will you possibly be learning something, you will be helping to end world hunger.  This site works through the United Nations World Food Programme to help donate this rice to nations and individuals who are less fortunate then we are.

So, please go play some, learn some, and help end world hunger!
Again, the website is Freerice.com!