By Jena Goldberg
Special to GUIDON
Have you ever really thought about all the numbers that are involved in becoming healthier? We want the numbers on the scale to go down, the number of our body fat readings to be less, and of course life would be just perfect if the number of calories we consumed could be more. Unfortunately, the only way we can eat more calories — and get away with it — is by adding more time on the treadmill. And despite the fact that not many of us are willing to put in more cardio; the truth is that we usually have the extra calories anyway.
Special to GUIDON
Goldberg
This, in turn, starts the vicious number cycle again, causing the weight on the scale to go up, the body fat reading to rise and — you guessed it — the amount of time to lose the extra pounds increases, as well. The never-ending cycle can make us want to throw up our hands and give up altogether.
The kitchen is our greatest challenge when it comes to reaching our fitness goals, but what if it really was as simple as adding up the numbers? Would we be successful at the end of the day?
Let’s look at a few things before we answer that. What is a calorie anyway? Kids Health tells us that a calorie is simply something that our bodies need for energy. It also makes a simple comparison that some foods contain very little calories while some foods are very high in calories. For example, one cup of shredded lettuce has only 10 calories while a half a cup of peanuts has 427 calories.
It turns out that an extremely high percentage of Americans are balancing their checkbooks pretty similar to the way that they are balancing their daily intake of calories. When we have reached the amount of calories that we have allocated for the day, we cannot continue to consume additional calories. We can become overdrawn, much like our finances when we continue to spend money that we don’t have. The only difference is that the notice doesn’t come when we go to withdraw cash with our bank card; it comes when we go to put on our favorite jeans and they won’t fit anymore.
So how do we use our intelligence to keep everything in balance so that our daily numbers will work for us instead of against us?
Let’s look at it this way. The average woman (of course this is an estimate depending on your weight and how active you are) needs about 1,200 to 1,600 calories a day. I also must add that we should never drop below 1,200 calories as it will not help our bodies to lose more weight but encourage our bodies to hold on to calories. And the average man needs approximately 2,000 to 2,400 calories a day (again stressing that a more active male will require more). With that said, these are our approximate numbers for the day. I am pretty active, so the start of my day would start with a ledger of 1600 calories. If this were my checkbook, I’d have to subtract each thing that I ate throughout the day until I made it down to zero calories. Sounds pretty easy, right?
The unfortunate news is that it’s really challenging and not easy. The good news is that it does work for those who take the time to do it. Another bonus is that the longer you do it, the better you get at it. We usually learn after the first couple of days that a doughnut is not only a bad idea because of how unhealthy it is for us, but also because it steals 380 of our daily calories.
A bowl of oatmeal and an egg start to sound a lot more appetizing for breakfast, bringing us to only 220 calories and keeping us full a lot longer because of the fiber and protein. The process of recording our calories can help us not only to stay true to our daily calorie count but can also force us to read the labels on the foods that we consume each day. It is my opinion that this practice encourages us to become healthier. It can truly be surprising to find out the nutritional value of some of our foods, not to mention the discovery of how many calories we have really been taking in — that’s a bit of information we have to know if we ever expect to shed any weight.
My final word is this: The practice of recording our daily calories can be a wakeup call for many of us. It is not only a tool to help us to finally lose weight, but also a way to force us to learn about nutrition. Reading food labels and becoming aware of the amount of calories in our foods will lead us to make better choices. The numbers are never wrong. If we exceed the amount of calories that we are supposed to have for the day without putting in some extra time at the gym, we will gain weight. If we record the calories that we take in each day and stop when we run out, the opposite will happen and we will lose weight.
It takes 3,500 calories to burn one pound. Unfortunately, that number is never going to change no matter how many times we try to change it. The combination of a controlled nutrition plan and daily exercise are the only way that we can have a deficit of this many calories. Losing weight is now and will always be as simple as, “calories in, calories out.”
(Editor’s note: Goldberg is a military spouse, mother, certified personal trainer, National Figure competitor and fitness writer. Her column appears bi-monthly.)
The kitchen is our greatest challenge when it comes to reaching our fitness goals, but what if it really was as simple as adding up the numbers? Would we be successful at the end of the day?
Let’s look at a few things before we answer that. What is a calorie anyway? Kids Health tells us that a calorie is simply something that our bodies need for energy. It also makes a simple comparison that some foods contain very little calories while some foods are very high in calories. For example, one cup of shredded lettuce has only 10 calories while a half a cup of peanuts has 427 calories.
It turns out that an extremely high percentage of Americans are balancing their checkbooks pretty similar to the way that they are balancing their daily intake of calories. When we have reached the amount of calories that we have allocated for the day, we cannot continue to consume additional calories. We can become overdrawn, much like our finances when we continue to spend money that we don’t have. The only difference is that the notice doesn’t come when we go to withdraw cash with our bank card; it comes when we go to put on our favorite jeans and they won’t fit anymore.
So how do we use our intelligence to keep everything in balance so that our daily numbers will work for us instead of against us?
Let’s look at it this way. The average woman (of course this is an estimate depending on your weight and how active you are) needs about 1,200 to 1,600 calories a day. I also must add that we should never drop below 1,200 calories as it will not help our bodies to lose more weight but encourage our bodies to hold on to calories. And the average man needs approximately 2,000 to 2,400 calories a day (again stressing that a more active male will require more). With that said, these are our approximate numbers for the day. I am pretty active, so the start of my day would start with a ledger of 1600 calories. If this were my checkbook, I’d have to subtract each thing that I ate throughout the day until I made it down to zero calories. Sounds pretty easy, right?
The unfortunate news is that it’s really challenging and not easy. The good news is that it does work for those who take the time to do it. Another bonus is that the longer you do it, the better you get at it. We usually learn after the first couple of days that a doughnut is not only a bad idea because of how unhealthy it is for us, but also because it steals 380 of our daily calories.
A bowl of oatmeal and an egg start to sound a lot more appetizing for breakfast, bringing us to only 220 calories and keeping us full a lot longer because of the fiber and protein. The process of recording our calories can help us not only to stay true to our daily calorie count but can also force us to read the labels on the foods that we consume each day. It is my opinion that this practice encourages us to become healthier. It can truly be surprising to find out the nutritional value of some of our foods, not to mention the discovery of how many calories we have really been taking in — that’s a bit of information we have to know if we ever expect to shed any weight.
My final word is this: The practice of recording our daily calories can be a wakeup call for many of us. It is not only a tool to help us to finally lose weight, but also a way to force us to learn about nutrition. Reading food labels and becoming aware of the amount of calories in our foods will lead us to make better choices. The numbers are never wrong. If we exceed the amount of calories that we are supposed to have for the day without putting in some extra time at the gym, we will gain weight. If we record the calories that we take in each day and stop when we run out, the opposite will happen and we will lose weight.
It takes 3,500 calories to burn one pound. Unfortunately, that number is never going to change no matter how many times we try to change it. The combination of a controlled nutrition plan and daily exercise are the only way that we can have a deficit of this many calories. Losing weight is now and will always be as simple as, “calories in, calories out.”
(Editor’s note: Goldberg is a military spouse, mother, certified personal trainer, National Figure competitor and fitness writer. Her column appears bi-monthly.)