Eat for your goals – Stabroek News

A colleague of mine shared that she has been eating healthily and drinking her flat belly tea but has yet to lose any weight.

Why hasn’t she been achieving your goals despite everything she’s been doing? It’s simple: calories in and calories out.

The truth is, whether you’re trying to gain weight or lose it, it’s a game of calories. Many will argue that it is not, that you can lose weight while maintaining a high caloric intake daily. However, this is not the case unless your energy activity level for the day is higher than your daily storage. So in the end, you’re still eating less calories than your body consumes. That’s the simple truth; it’s not rocket science. If you want to lose weight / body fat you must eat fewer calories than your body consumes in a day and if you want to gain weight and add muscle you need to have a surplus of calories to your body build on it. Maybe reread that last sentence again.

So why isn’t eating healthier still helping you achieve your weight loss goals? The truth is that many healthy foods are still high in calories; they carry large amounts of calories. For example, almonds or seeds that are healthy for you as they contain good amounts of Omegas are 9kcal per gram. All fats are higher calories per gram, whether they are good or bad fats. Another great example is Quinoa. It’s a great healthy food choice but one cooked cup has about 222 calories coming from 39g of carbs, 8g of protein and 4g of fat.

I mean it’s awesome food to include but most people don’t stop for 1 cup, they serve 2 cups easily because 1 cup doesn’t look like much. At the end of the day making healthy food choices is not necessarily going to help you achieve the body you are looking for.

How do we get the best of both worlds? Obviously, we don’t want you to lose weight in an unhealthy way. The key to all of this is portion sizes and knowing how much you are eating for the caloric for the day. Moreover, not only know how many calories you need but where they come from. If you’re a 200lb man trying to lose weight, you probably want to keep at least 160g of protein in your daily intake. That’s .8g of protein per body weight. Going lower than that could hinder the mass weight of your lean muscle mass and in terms of body composition you are not trying to lose lean muscle, just fat. Therefore, it is essential that you know how many calories you need and know how to divide them into your three macros. If you don’t know how to do it, here’s a simple generic way to know the basics.

Protein: eat at least .8g of protein / weight

Fats: Use 20% of your daily caloric intake of healthy fats

Carbs: Once you have calculated how many calories you have left over, then add them in the form of complex carbs and vegetables. Even further, consume most of your carbs before and after your workout plan.

Obviously, you want to lose weight in a healthy way, so make sure you include foods that contain many mineral and vitamin sources from your food. Chicken and broccoli by themselves will not provide you with many nutrients every day. I highly encourage you to use a good multitamin vitamin.

So, that’s it; very simply, if you’re trying to lose weight don’t think organic or natural is better for your goals, they might hold the same if not more calories than the regular version of what you eat. Healthy eating is essential but knowing how to eat for your goals is more important.

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