Your Ideal Form

Helping you on your journey to your best self!

Eating Healthy does NOT Equal Losing Weight

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eating healthy does not equal losing weight

Saying you are going to eat healthy to lose weight is a lot like saying you are going to eat “less”. It’s rather nebulous. What constitutes “healthy” foods? Even the government doesn’t know. Not to mention, guidelines seem to change constantly. First eggs are bad for you, then they are good for you, then they are bad for you again. Fat is bad, but then olive oil is good, and then coconut oil is the new olive oil, and we should all be eating avocados and almonds all the time because they are “good fats”. It gets very confusing very quickly.

It is possible to gain weight while eating a healthy diet. Weightlifters do this all the time. You can have too much of a good thing. It might be harder to overeat on salad, chicken breast, and rice, but it is possible.  Then there is the caution around foods that seem healthy but really aren’t, like the 2000 Calorie salads at some restaurants. Or foods that start out healthy, (like a simple baked potato) but end up not healthy once you add condiments (such as butter, sour cream, cheese and bacon).

This is why it is so important to track what you are doing. You may think you are on the right road, but without accurate data, there’s no way of knowing if you are going in the right direction or not.

I also implore you to try not to get frustrated with ever-changing guidelines. That scientists are constantly doing studies and trying to learn more about how our bodies react to certain foods is a FANTASTIC thing! The more informed we are, the better decisions we can make to truly be healthy.

What healthy foods are you guilty of over-indulging in? Let me know in the comments! (For me, it’s grapes!)

Healthy Self. Heal Thy Self.

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healthy self, heal thy self
The number of testimonials you can find about people who decided to live a healthier lifestyle and in the process cured some ailment that had been affecting them for years is staggering. Most of them started very small. A walk around the block, or 5 push-ups at a time, or one simple yoga pose. But through consistency and persistence, they saw their lives transformed. There are stories of no longer needing blood pressure or cholesterol medications, or having a diagnosis of pre-diabetes reversed. I’m not suggesting we should all suddenly shun modern medicine, but try switching to a healthier lifestyle and see if that doesn’t help heal a bit of what ails you!

Why Diet Matters More than Exercise for Weight Loss

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Why Diet Matters More than Exercise for Weight Loss

 

I’m sure you’ve heard the oft-cited statistic that diet is 70-80% of weight loss, and that exercise makes up the remainder. Let me explain why.

Earlier this year, I got myself a FitBit Blaze which has a built-in heart rate monitor. This means that by telling the app my height and weight, it bases my calorie burn throughout the day on that combined with my heart rate. This helps give me a much more accurate picture of my TDEE than just using a calculator alone. That said, the calculator I tend to use is really close to what my FitBit tells me.

The other data that I get from my FitBit is how many calories I burned during exercise, and how that compares to my total calories for the day. In the example below, I went for a one-mile walk and burned 126 calories. But that was just a smidgen of the 2020 calories I burned over the course of the entire day.

calories burned

So where does the rest of that calorie burn come from? That’s where your basal metabolic rate (BMR) and Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) come from. BMR is how many calories your body burns just to keep you alive if you laid in bed all day. TDEE takes into account your average activity throughout the day, and includes things like calories burned to digest food, get dressed, walk to the coffee machine, bounce your leg up and down if you’re the fidgety type.

So you can see that very few of the calories I burned for the day are attributed to the exercise I did. Just over six percent. Most of my calories burned are based on my BMR. The only way to change your BMR is to increase your lean muscle mass through resistance training (either body-weight exercises or lifting weights). On the other hand, I consumed just over 1500 calories that same day. That comes out to about 74% of the calories I burned for the day. So you can see how changing how I eat can have a much greater impact on my weight than changing how much I exercise.

Which brings us back around to the weight loss equation. TDEE minus 500 calories each day equals weight loss of one pound per week. In order to burn off 500 calories, I would have had to walk five times as far. That would have been 5 miles, and it would have taken me nearly two hours at the pace I was going (which was, admittedly, somewhat leisurely). That is a lot of time and effort. It is far easier for me to simply cut 500 calories worth of food from my diet. If you drink your calories in the form of soda, energy drinks, alcohol or specialty coffees, the quickest way to cut those calories is to switch to water or a calorie-free version of your favorite drink. I get that it is difficult to go from a double shot mocha with whipped cream to black coffee, but if you can manage the swap, you can reach your goals so much sooner, and without feeling like you’ve had to completely sacrifice something.

Your Body Wants Nutrients, Not Just Calories

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Your body wants nutrients not calories

 

Remember, when your body is hungry it wants nutrients, not calories. This is about being truly hungry, not about just craving something. Always try to satiate true hunger with real food, rather than snacks or “junk” food. You’ll feel fuller on fewer calories, and you are less likely to feel hungry again in a short amount of time. Protein is great at making you feel fuller for longer, relative to the same amount of starchy carbs. On the flip side, veggies are great at letting you eat a large volume of food to fill your stomach without having to take in as many calories. Fill your body with what it truly needs!

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Are You TRULY Hungry?

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Are you truly hungry?

Feeling hungry sucks. It’s uncomfortable, no fun, and distracting. It’s hard to get your work done when all you can think about is food or when/what you’re going to eat next. Unfortunately for most of us, we can’t just eat what we want whenever we want and still attain our fitness goals. At the same time, our bodies need fuel! So let’s learn to decipher when we should feed a rumbling stomach, and when we should just ignore it.

Are you hungry due to boredom?

Sometimes, we’re just looking for something to do, so we eat. We get bored, wander into the kitchen, and decide that food will give our hands and mouths something to do for a bit. Having a hobby that keeps your hands occupied can help. I have gone and gotten myself a snack, and had it sit there untouched for lengths of time because I was too busy with the Xbox controller or my knitting or even just doing some coloring to reach for the food rather than what I was already doing.

Are you hungry due to habit?

Maybe you always eat around this time, so even if your previous meal was huge and you’re not really hungry, your body is telling you it’s time to eat, just out of habit. Maybe you always snack on something while watching TV, or you have to have something to sip on while sitting at the computer. This is a tough habit to break. Sometimes, substitutions can work. Swap in a calorie-free flavored sparkling water for soda or alcohol. Try eating snacks that require work, such as nuts that are still in the shell, or individually wrapped string cheese. Plain, air-popped popcorn is always a good standby for something crunchy (garlic powder and salt can add some flavor without adding calories.) Try slowly weaning yourself off of the “need” to have something to munch on or drink.

Are you hungry due to thirst?

Sometimes, we think we’re hungry, but really, we’re just thirsty. Since we can get some of our daily allotment of water from some of the foods we eat (think of how much water is in an apple), it makes sense that at times we get the thirst and hunger signals crossed. If you think you may be “hungry” because you are bored or just out of habit, try drinking a large glass of water, and see if that helps satiate you for a while.

Are you hungry due to cravings?

Cravings are a bit different, because you’re hungry for something very specific. This is when you will need to “know thyself” and/or experiment to find out what works for you. Some options for handling cravings are:

  • Eat a tiny portion of what you are craving.
  • Eat a much healthier version of what you are craving.* (Craving something sweet? Try fruit. Salty? Some salted nuts. Crunchy? Carrot sticks. Etc.)
  • Write down what you are craving, and if your eating plan involves a cheat day, make sure you get your fill on that day, and that day only.
  • Draw a picture of what you are craving. I don’t know why or how this works, but I have tried it a couple times and by the time I was done sketching (I am a terrible artist, btw) I no longer craved what I had drawn.

* The caveat here is only if this actually works for you. If you try a bunch of alternatives, and none of them works, and you end up having what you were craving in the first place, you just ended up eating a lot of unnecessary food. Next time, try the option of just having a little of what you were craving to begin with.

The Apple Test

If none of the above applies, it’s time for the apple test. Or carrot test, or whatever healthy snack one feeds to kindergartners these days. Are you hungry enough that you would eat an apple? Or some carrot sticks? The idea here is not to pick a food you hate, but a food that is considered “healthy”. So often, when we get “hungry” we tend to reach for processed snack foods. If you are hungry enough to eat fresh whole food, then you truly are hungry. If you wouldn’t eat a small handful of almonds, but you would have no problem polishing off a slice of cake or pizza, then you’re probably not really that hungry.

 

Recognizing the difference between cravings, boredom, thirst, habit and true hunger is a skill that will greatly help you on your journey. It won’t make the hunger go away, but being able to objectively realize the difference between true hunger and the other types makes it much easier to deal with.

Half-Ass or Bad-Ass?

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half-ass or bad-ass

Half-ass or bad-ass. It really is your choice. Who will you choose to be today? Will you simply go through the motions and slog through another day? Or will you do those extra reps? Take the stairs? Run an extra lap? Be a hero to yourself today!