Calorie Counting

Morning all!
weigh in 217.2
day 2 nonsmoker

Goodmorning. I start my day off with a pumpkin spice latte and breakfast sandwich. I ate meat this morning because i forgot about  not eating meat. I know right? What kind of excuse is that? Really it just makes it worse ya know? Saying I must not care that much about my plan. Well I do and Im not eating meat again for a while. Next week I will still be cutting out animal byproducts other than dairy. Then the week after dairy will be last. Lastly that will start my 30days of Raw Foods. All done in Baby Steps. : )

        This morning I noticed alot of questions about calories. How do you know it works? How do you know how many you should have?  What is to high? What is to low and why?  Why should I chose calorie counting.  So many questions we could all think of. Well lets start answering them.

        How do you know it works? Well personally I have lost 38lbs so far through calorie counting and moderate excercize and I havent excercized in two months and im still losing.  cant trust me? Do your research. Check out some trusted sites. Like, mayoclinic.com, WebMD.com, or JillianMichaels.com. It couldnt hurt to do some research?

           Now how do we know how many calories we should be eating?  It goes by your height, age, and weight.  There is a huge mathematical problem that you could look up but that would just be annoying to me. lol So lets go check out a calorie calculator- http://www.healthyweightforum.org/eng/calculators/calories-required/- after you have calculated your calories. Notice that under 1200 cals for a female and under 1400 cals for a male is unhealthy. It is not good for you and should not be that low. If the calorie  calculator show you should eat only the lowest amount healthy for your body.  Then I suggest that you up it by 200cals and erase those extra cals through excercize. 

          Why does it matter if your to low or high in your calories? Well it is suggested that you shouldnt be under 1000 cal deficit. Your body will hold weight longer and eat muscle not only your fat. When you are portraying higher than normal rapid weightloss it is unhealthy and  a shock to your body and you could hurt yourself more than to help it. A deficit is the negative amount of calories in your diet. for example I eat 1600 cals a day and my deficit is 900 cals. If i was maintaing today at my weight i would be eating at 2600cals.  So right now im under by 1000 to lose weight.  By keeping my deficit at under 1000 then I am healthil burning more fat.  I can burn more calories through excercize but Im insuring I receive my nutrients.

         Why should you chose calorie counting? I think everyones reasoning is different yet close to the same reason I chose it. I love food. Thats how I got here. : ) Its no secret food is delicous. I dont do very good when I am told I cant have something all together. When i get cut off from something it makes me almost ravenous. So I know that as long as its in my budget i can have it. If i chose to have pizza one day then i know thats the bulk of my food for the day. Its all about budgeting and im good at that. Figure out your reasoning and you will go far. : )

Good Luck!