I’m writing an article to answer the question, “the amount of calories should I consume each day to lose weight?”
This question is an extremely common one, as most health specialists have said that people should limit their calorie consumption as they eat a lot of food with high calorie count.
I’ve a difficult time doing this, since, for me, calorie counting isn’t that important. This is because the number of people struggling with weight problems are still rising regardless of how much they know about their calorie intake.
While it may be correct that calorie count does matter, this is not too significant for typical people such as you and me.
For the time being, let’s assume that the “calories in, calories out” theory works and that you could simply lose weight just by stopping eating your favorite foods (junk foods, for example).
This theory tells us that people are becoming obese since they eat more food than they “burn” food. The calorie content of these extra food are then transformed by the body into fat, giving our body additional weight and will later result in obesity.
If you want to shed 30 pounds by using this technique, and you desire to decrease at least 500 calories per day, you’d need to weigh in each and every food you eat and know its calorie content for 7 months.
Also, let’s pretend that you can do all of these (because of strong willpower), leaving yourself hungry and depraved of energy. Do you think it’ll have positive results after that?
You are going to have to continue doing this, because or else you are gonna gain that weight back.
Plus there are many other problems with calorie counting.:
The body’s metabolism depends upon many factors: weight, genetics, age, sex, height and other factors.
Restricting your calorie consumption will affect your metabolic process, with its rate changing high and low.
The more you try to control your calorie consumption, the more your brain will try to increase your hunger and your wanting ness of food to satiate your hunger.
Additionally, weighing food will take a toll on your daily life. You won’t be able to eat out at restaurants or other peoples homes, and it is just completely inconvenient and unsustainable.
This theory is just hard. People would not desire to weigh in and calculate the number of calories they’ll intake on each and every food they consume, which is essential if they wish to shed their weight this way.
Furthermore, I think that the entirety of the human race can not control their desires, and that includes food intake.
I’ll discuss one hormone that is vital to your body, and I’m sure that you’ve heard of it already. It is called Insulin.
As you may know, Insulin is used for regulating one’s blood sugar levels, preventing people from being a diabetic.
What insulin also does, is to function as a gatekeeper to your fat cells.
Once levels of insulin are raised, the body’s fat cells are now “ordered” to store fat, and make sure that the amount of fat inside it does not get out.
If insulin levels are high even though you are eating less calories than you burn, then your body fat will have a true hard time getting out of your fat cells.
This can then make alert your body, and your brain too, that it is deprived of energy. Which then results to the inevitable “hunger”.
What I recommend, is choosing foods that do not cause a big amount of insulin release.
One such example of that content is the macronutrient “carbohydrate”. A single drop of carbohydrate greatly decreases insulin levels.
By doing this, some of the fat stored inside the body are burned and the feeling of hunger dissipates. This is proven by scientists and experts.
Hunger for food will then dissipate, and the body will instead use the extra fat as energy for the whole body.
Weight loss is not about calories, it’s about eating the kinds of foods that encourage weight reduction.
Thus in order to lose weight, it’s not how many calories should you eat, unless this is something that works for you.
The better question could be: how much carbohydrates should I take daily in order to lose fat?