To eat or not to eat? The truth about caloric intake!

Ok do you all want the truth? If you truly want your body to burn fat and maintain muscle mass then you must consume as many calories as you are burning in a day. How do you know how many you are burning? Trainers and nutritionalist will use your RMR. Your what? Your RMR is your Resting Metabolic Rate. You can go to gyms or a nutritionalist to get an RMR test. This will tell you how many calories you are burning (roughly) per day. To find your RMR they hook you up to a machine and have your lay at rest for a set period of time. Then they calculate how many calories per minute you burn while completely at rest, multiply that by the total number of minutes in the day and Ta-Da: your RMR.
Now let’s say your RMR is 1700 Calories per day. They ask about your “level of activity” and the computer will calculate how many calories it thinks you burn doing low, moderate or high levels of activity. At a moderate level (working out regularly) they would probably say you burn about 2800 calories per day. Then they would take that number and tell you how many calories to restrict to loose weight.

Scientifically speaking: To lose 1 lbs a week you should have a caloric deficit of 500 calories per day. That’s 3500 calories per week which is how much is how much it would take to loose 1 pound of fat. (One pound of fat contains 3500 calories.) Here’s the thing... Once you have reached a certain percent of body fat EVERYTHING you put in your mouth is converted into fat. Once you have restricted your calories so much that your body is in a state of starvation it will stay that way and the BEST thing you can do is to EAT MORE!!! If you think that you want to loose 3 lbs a week so you restrict 1500 cal a day your body will do exactly opposite or what you want. It will store fat not burn it! But if you break out of that starvation mode then it may not just dump 1 pound per week but 3 or 4 with no extra effort on your part.

I know I know it goes against everything you’ve ever heard, everything you’ve ever been taught and most of all your emotions pick up and yell, “This can’t be true! It doesn’t make sense to eat more if you want to loose more!” I was there. When my husband told me all of this, I told him it didn’t make sense. I wanted to eat less and have my body burn up all the freaking fat I was carrying. He said this, “Your body doesn’t have emotions and your body doesn’t think. Your body is a machine! A perfect beautiful and creative machine that will functions that way if you give it everything it needs.” If you give your body all of the carbs, protein and fat that it requires to function well it will do just that. In fact if your body is getting everything it needs then it will stop running in a mode of starvation and begin running like a well oiled machine. It will send out the signals to dump the excess baggage (fat) because it doesn’t need it anymore.

The trick: NUTRIENT DENSE FOODS!!!!!
Good food like grilled chicken rice and vegetables. Also it is CRUCIAL to get Protein, CARBS (good carbs like rice, pasta, even bread if you’re careful and of course fruits and veggies) and FAT!!! That’s right folks you MUST eat fat every day. We all need good essential fatty acids you know the good stuff like Omega 3, 6 and 9. If you don’t eat fat your body will make it!

If you read my comment on Karilynns blog then you know that I am eating approximately 3700 calories per day. That is because I’m burning 3500-3700 calories per day right now. I have not been eating enough and my body, being the perfect machine it is, has been in starvation mode and storing fat like a champ. I’m going to reset my system by eating as much as I’m using. I’ve been at this about a week and going strong. I know most of you are thinking this is the craziest thing you’ve ever heard. But somewhere some of you may be thinking that it makes sense. I will say this, how many trainers that put you on your 1500 calorie diets will guarantee that you loose weight without working out? Have you ever heard of any? They all say work out! Work out! Work out! My husband will guarantee fat loss by eating on his menu even if you don’t change your level of activity at all! So am I crazy? Is he? Ultimately, time will tell. In a couple of weeks I’ll either have lost or gained. You’ll have to wait and see!