I would like to write a post to reply to the debate on how many calories you must feed on every day to lose fat?
This is a very common question, which isn’t surprising as modern health authorities are constantly saying that people eat way too many calories per day and should cut back.
I have a few problems with this approach, mostly since I don’t believe that counting calories is essential. This is as the number of people struggling with obesity are still increasing regardless of how much they know about their calorie consumption.
It is true that calories matter, but I think this is something typical people shouldn’t worry about.
For now, let us think that the “calories in, calories out” theory works and that you might just lose weight by just quitting eating your favorite foods (fast foods, for example).
What this theory states is that people are fat because on an average day, they eat more than they burn. The calorie content of those extra food are then transformed by the body into fat, giving our body extra weight and will later result in obesity.
If you wish to shed 30 pounds by using this technique, and you wish to decrease a minimum of 500 calories each day, you’d have to weigh in each and every food you eat and know its calorie content for 7 months.
Let’s consider that you have an insanely strong willpower and are willing to let yourself undergo numerous months of feeling hungry and energy deprived. Do you think it’ll have positive effects after that?
As if you wish to lose fat, you have no choice but to do this otherwise, you will gain all the weight that you’ve lost.
Furthermore, other issues are present in calorie counting:
Your metabolic rate depends on height, body fat levels, age, sex, activity level, hormones, genetics and others factors.
Restricting your calorie intake will affect your metabolic process, with its rate changing high and low.
The more you try to control your calorie intake, the more your brain will try to raise your hunger and your wanting ness of food to satisfy your hunger.
Additionally, weighing food will take a toll on your daily life. You will not be able to eat out at restaurants or other peoples houses, and it is just totally inconvenient and unsustainable.
This theory is simply hard. We cannot expect people to weigh and count every single piece of food they eat for the rest of their lives, which is really what is required to shed weight this way.
Additionally, I believe that the entirety of the human race can’t control their desires, and that includes food consumption.
I am going to discuss a certain hormone in your body that you’ve most likely heard of before.
As you might know, Insulin is used for controlling one’s blood sugar levels, preventing people from being a diabetic.
What insulin also does, is to work as a gatekeeper to your fat cells.
When insulin levels are raised, the body’s fat cells are told to store fat and to ensure that whatever amount of fat already in them doesn’t get out.
With high levels of insulin, even if you’re taking considerably low calorie content, you’ll still have difficulty removing the content from your fat cells.
This can then make alert your body, and your brain too, that it’s deprived of energy. Which then leads to the inevitable “hunger”.
The best alternative to this is to select the foods that don’t contain excessive content of something that impacts insulin release.
The macronutrient that releases the greatest amount of insulin is carbs. A single drop of carbohydrate greatly decreases insulin levels.
When this happens, weight-loss sometimes happens automatically and without feelings of hunger. This is confirmed by researchers and experts.
Hunger for food will then disappear, and the body will instead use the extra fat as energy for the whole body.
Weight reduction isn’t about calories, it is about eating the kinds of foods that encourage weight reduction.
So in order to slim down, it is not calories, except if that is a method that works for you.
The better question would be: how much carbs should I take daily to shed weight?