Counting Calories And How To Cut Them To Lose Weight
Whether you want to lose weight or maintain it, counting calories is an essential step in the process. So let’s see how to count and cut calories from your diet.
By counting calories, you actually measure the amount of energy your body gets from the foods you eat and the energy your body uses to move and exercise during the day.
Now, you might want to lose weight or gain muscle mass or just maintain your current weight. Whatever your fitness goal is, counting calories is a great way to measure, document, and adjust our process.
So let’s see what are the calories, how to count and ct them, and how can we take advantage of them in our fight against obesity.
What Are Calories?
A basic definition of the term is a unit used in measuring energy.
There are two calories to be counted if you plan on following this method to lose or maintain your weight. They are called calories out and calories in.
Calories In
Calories in are those things you’ve eaten throughout the day. You need to count it all, even the gum you chewed.
You have to know the exact amount you eat per serving size of everything that went through your mouth.
This is a very tasking thing to do, but luckily, we are in a modern age where technology has almost everything easy. Now all you have to do is go online and search for a calorie counter website.
When you find one, you can search for the nutritional information of whatever you have eaten or drunk during the day and add it to the calorie counter, and then add up.
You have to do this daily to monitor the number of calories that go into your body each day.
Calories Out
For calories out, you will need to estimate because it is not a static thing. For this, you will need to know your BMI to be able to make the estimate.
Your Basal Metabolic Rate is what your body burns even when you engage in any rigorous activity.
If you engage in rigorous activities like high intensive exercise, sports or lifting of heavy things, your calories out will be more.
How Does Counting Calories Help?
When you can determine how many calories you take in and the number that goes out, you will know if you are adding weight or reducing.
For example, if your calorie intake for today was 2000 and you were able to burn 500 and maintain it that way for a week, losing weight will be easier.
Another way is by consuming fewer calories than you burn. If you eat lesser calories than you burn, for example, you reduce your calorie intake from 3000 to 2000, and you burn 500 daily, it means that you have 1500 calories left than the previous 2500 calories.
Using the first option is healthier when you are aiming at long-term fitness. But if you want a quick fix for that prom dinner party or that upcoming wedding, then you can go for the second option.
A combination of both is more effective for weight loss.
More Effective Ways Of Cutting Calories From Your Diet
As we all know, one of the effective ways to lose weight is by losing calories, and to do that you will have to burn more calories than you eat.
How do you do this? For some people, starving seems like the only logical way, probably eating a piece of fruit per day and nothing else.
But how long will you be able to sustain it? There would be a slip, and you could fall back deep into your old ways.
And long-term calorie restriction is capable of slowing down your metabolic rate. This means even when you try dieting again, it will take a longer period before you see the effect.
How do you prevent this from happening? Here are some few tips to effectively burning calories without compromising your feeding standard:
1. Cut Down Your Refined Carb And Sugar Intake
Rather than filling your stomach with low refined carbs, eat more complex carbs such as whole grains that contain fiber and other important nutrients.
Eating fewer carbs helps you in losing weight faster than counting calories of every meal you eat.
Moreover, too many refined carbs in our diet draw us closer to type 2 diabetes than any other thing. It is also capable of slowing down our metabolic rate thereby making it hard for our body to burn fat, and this leads to excess weight.
Also, reduce your intake of sugary drinks such as fruit juices and soft drinks. The easiest way to take in a lot of calories is through the sugary liquid, looking at how easy it is to gulp down in a second.
Moreover, you do not get the same satisfaction in a drink that solid food gives you. So probably after taking the high-calorie drink, you’ll still proceed to another high-calorie diet.
2. More Proteins Will Make A Difference
Eating a healthy supply of protein has always been associated with weight loss, and it is quite obvious why.
For starters, a protein-filled diet helps increase your metabolism to enable you to burn fat and reduce food cravings.
For the body to make use of protein, it has to burn calories, and a high protein diet can burn about 100 calories per day.
One advantage of eating protein is that one serving at lunchtime can keep you filled up till the next meal.
A study showed that people who had 30% of protein per day, ate lesser calories. This is because protein can reduce excessive thoughts about food and junks.
You can concentrate on your tasks and responsibilities during the day rather than thinking about what the next meal will be.
To lose weight without stressing, eat more protein and less refined carbs.
3. Focus On The Food When Eating
Paying attention to what you are eating is effective when monitoring your calories.
If you are reading a book while eating, there are chances that you will eat more than a serving because your mind was not consciously monitoring what you were doing.
This is why it is advised not to watch TV or to engage in other activities while eating.
When you see what you are about to eat, your mind decides at what point you are going to stop eating, especially if you are trying to lose weight. When you get to that point, you become mentally filled up, and you stop eating.
4. Include An Exercise Routine
This is one effective way of burning calories with no side effects while trying to cut down calories through dieting could lead to muscle loss. To prevent this from happening, exercising is the best way to go.
Lifting weights, squatting, pushups, or situps are some effective ways of regulating your metabolism and preventing muscle loss.
Your new body would look better if you had incorporated an exercise routing with dieting. The reward for your effort will be a toned and flexible body, not the saggy ones that most people parade.
5. Hydrate
It is very important to stay hydrated. You must have heard it over and over again, 8 glasses of water per day. Do you know fewer calories are consumed if you have two glasses of water before eating?
Yes, it’s that easy, but hardly anyone tries it. Probably because water isn’t just sweet.
If water is tasteless, do you prefer green tea? It’s also effective with a lot of benefits other than helping with weight loss.
You can either choose to drink more water or incorporate water-based fruits such as watermelon and cucumber into your diet; not to forget the green tea.
The goal is to get more natural and low-calorie liquid into your diet to help you with losing weight.
6. Dark Chocolates Are Your Best Snack When Losing Weight
Invest in dark chocolates during your weight loss plan. Your mind is wired in such a state that all junks are sweet.
Imagine how disappointed it will feel when you take dark chocolate…very disappointed. And it would be probably scary to get you to eat any junk again considering the previous experience.
And if you can forcefully take the next three bars, it will get used to it and see it as the best junk ever.
Dark chocolates help in reducing your appetite for junks. Just by smelling it, you will feel like you’ve eaten a big bowl of cereals. It helps in slowing down digestion too.
Counting calories might seem hard when you do it for the first time, but you’ll get used to it. After a while, it’ll be part of your daily habits, don’t worry.
Hopefully, these tips will help you cut down your calorie intake so you’ll reach your desired weight quickly. Stay fit!
