Healthy eating does not have to be overwhelming!
One of the most frequently asked questions I get as a trainer is “What do I eat to lose fat?” With all the information and advertisements out there this can be a very confusing topic. Old school science used to teach that calories = calories out. In other words, if the amount of calories you take in each day equals the amount of calories you burn each day, then will maintain your weight and you are good to go.
Keeping It Simple
We are going to keep it REALLY simple because the goal is to just get started
How Much To Eat
3500 calories equals one pound of fat. So, in order to lose one pound of fat per week, by these old standards, you would simply have to reduce your caloric intake by 500 calories per day (500 cal x 7 days per week = 3500 calories or one pound of fat) to lose one pound of fat. By this calories in/calories out theory, you could eat all of your daily calories in donuts and as long as you stayed within the proper limits you would stay the same weight. Awesome…Too bad it doesn’t work that way. The calories in/ calories out model is only half of the equation.
First, to determine how much to eat, you can use an online Total Daily Expenditure Calculator . This tool will use information such as height, weight, gender and activity level to calculate the number of calories it will take per day to maintain your current body weight. If you want to lose one pound per week, reduce that figure by 500 calories per day (or add 500 calories per day of exercise, or split the difference between the two and do 250 calories of each)
What KIND of Food To Eat
The other important piece of the puzzle is the KIND of food you’re eating. Whole, real food is the best bet in all situations. Give your body what it expects and it will do your favors. When you put in the proper balance of real foods, as close to nature as possible (for example, a real apple instead of a sweetened applesauce) the liver can focus on its job of metabolism rather than decoding and filtering through many of these processed food items and chemicals that we see on the store shelves today. It is important to know that with every bite of food, hormones are produced in the body. These hormones determine whether you will open the doors to fat burning or shut them off for the next several hours. We will go into detail on this topic in later posts but just suffice it to know for now that WHAT you eat is just as important as how much you eat.
Need more help? You can download my simple food list…“What to Eat Cheat Sheet” Here
When you sign up for the “What to Eat Cheat Sheet” you get my 30 day new you newsletter to help guide you to creating new healthy habits over the course of the next 30 days! Why not?!
How to Fill Your Plate
The diagram below will help you choose just how much of each macro-nutrient (protein, carbohydrates and fat) to put on your plate. This balance of foods will help to keep your blood sugar stable, fat burning hormones in balance and your energy levels high. Give it a try with your very next meal!
I hope this helps get you started!
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