No matter what your health goals are you’ve most likely had to scuffle with how many calories you needed to intake to reach your target. It’s important to keep track of the calories you are intaking when you are trying to hit your goal, but it’s equally important that you actually hit specific caloric values from the food you consume each day.
Do Not Dramatically Cut Your Calories
It can be very tempting when trying to lose weight to do a massive caloric cut of your daily budget but that is not recommended. Doing too dramatic of a calorie cut is not only very unhealthy but will likely prevent you from losing weight, which defeats the entire purpose. Having an understanding of your metabolism is a big key to understanding the importance calories has on your body.
Your body is a well oiled machine, and it’s smart (for the most part). In response to a massive calorie cut, for starters, you most likely won’t be getting all the nutrients you need but your body is going to respond to this new calorie intake, and not in the ways you might think. The natural response to the lack of calories is going to be your body slowing down your metabolism so the focus is on the conservation of energy. Once your metabolism slows it’s going to greatly decrease your chances of a successful weight loss attempt and can actually lead to weight gain in the future.
The real ticket to success is a combination of exercise plus calorie tracking/control when trying to lose weight, in a healthy way. You can and should eat enough to properly nourish your body while still being able to stay on a path to weight loss. There is no getting around the fact that you need to be in a caloric deficit to lose weight, but by exercising you’ll burn additional calories which will help you reach your ultimate goal.
What is BMR And How Does It Help Determine Your Caloric Intake Needs?
When taking a higher level look at what BMR is you’ll find it’s basically how many calories your body needs to just stay alive. BMR stands for basal metabolic rate, and it should be the absolute minimum number of calories that you are going to need. Your body being the well oiled machine it is needs calories to power its various parts (organs) and your BMR is a value that tells you how many calories all of those organs need, combined, to keep functioning when you aren’t doing any activities at all. If you live a sedentary life this is the energy you’d burn mostly just sitting and laying around all day doing nothing.
Your BMR also goes up as you put on muscle mass since muscles will demand energy to maintain their size. If you’re working out 5 days a week and have large muscles vs someone like myself who works out 3 times a week and has more of a string bean body type then who do you think needs more calories to maintain their physique? If we had a month of doing nothing the muscle bound individual is going to need more calories daily than I to maintain their muscles while we sit around doing nothing.
This Calorie Tracking App Can Get You Right
We all have different bodies, and unique needs so figuring out how many calories you actually need can be tough. You can think you’re eating pretty well for the most part and you might get in some regular fitness but there is a good chance you still aren’t going to lose any weight. Using an app like Meta Nutrition will help calculate your calorie needs and allow you to make a more educated decision on your lifestyle so you can most optimize your daily schedule and health.
Food can be very tricky: learning to take control of your portions and food will be your key to success, regardless of your goal or if you just want to make improvements to your overall lifestyle. The primary message of this article is to make sure you get the right amount of calories for any of the goals you are going for because it’s required for your body to function properly.