How Many Calories Should I Eat?
I had a male client who had a history of consuming 250 kilocalories each day for almost 3 months. He finally reached his goal weight that is 88 lbs. His height was 5 ft 4 inches. He came to me with this question in his mind that how many calories should he eat to maintain that weight! I wondered how he managed to survive with just 250 kilocalories in a day.
To answer it in brief, I can say that as per researches 1600 kilocalories is ideal for male and 1400 kilocalories for female. But is this really true? Where human body is made up of trillions of cells, do you think, you can calculate the number of calories needed by each cell? So the above numbers are just assumption based numbers. It is always better to listen to the signals of your hormones or to act as per as the demand of your body.
It is easy. If you feel that after eating 3 whole eggs, your stomach gets full then eat 3 eggs. But if your stomach gets full after eating 6 whole eggs then eat 6 eggs. Never overfeed or underfeed yourself.
How many calories do I need?
This is one of the commonest mistakes which people do in order to lose weight. Focus on my words I just said “Weight”. Our body is made up of many essential components such as water, muscles, organs, bones, skin, blood vessels, essential body fat and adipose tissue (extra fat).
People certainly lose weight and not fat. You may lose weight of essential components. This can give rise to many medical complications for example weakness, brain fogging and lack of mental clarity. This all happens without even touching the unnecessary fat. People tend to follow crash diet and as the name suggests, it really crashes their system.
A healthy weight management plan never focuses on amount of kilo calories you eat instead the quality of food you eat. Because you can never eat the quality food in excess. By quality food, I clearly mean that consumption of a diet rich in proteins and fats with minimal carbohydrates. So, it is the carbohydrates that make you eat in excess because your hunger hormones cannot respond or give signals when you feed your body with carbohydrates.
How many calories per day?
Lets take some examples. Cold drinks, chips, chocolates, sweets like gulabjamun, namkeen, pizza, pasta, ice creams, maggi, rotis, rice etc. you can have all of them in excess because these are carbohydrates or sugars. I have already mentioned in my blog, “ Carbohydrates- The Slow Sweet Poison” that Carbs or sugars are 7 times more addictive than the drugs such as hash, weed, cocaine etc. But when it comes to eating only proteins and fats, you can never eat that in excess as your hunger and satiety hormones send signals efficiently that you are hungry or you have to stop eating now.
The client I was talking about, followed a type of diet that is very similar to fasting. We must not forget that fasting should always be incidental, it should never be intentional. Because whenever you feel hungry your body needs its fuel that is food. So one must eat food which contains adequate protein and fats of good quality. You should never fill your stomach with useless and less efficient stuffs. It is a need to understand the basic difference between “fat loss” and “weight loss”.
Weight loss can lead to malfunctioning of various systems in your body. You may notice symptoms such as weakness, lethargicness, tiredness and less energy within yourself. In later stages they suffer from pain, numbness, tingling sensation, hair fall, poor vision, poor bone density etc.
Always consume kilocalories as per your body’s demand. Remember, the demand of your body will depend upon the intake of quality of the food.
Are Apples Good For Weight Loss?
Ans: Fruits contain fibers and fibers keeps your stomach full. It gives you a feeling of fullness so you do not feel hungry for a longer period of time. But this is also true that fibers place unnecessary load on your digestive system as they do not get digested. First of all, excess of anything is bad so you must control the quantum of fruits you eat. Second, you should not eat fruits excessively and on daily basis because fruits contain carbohydrates known as fructose.
Fructose is a sugar which is one of the main reasons for the occurrence of non-alcoholic fatty liver. Fruits nowadays are hybrid and artificially created. Be cautious before the consumption of apples as they contain coating of paraffin wax which is not good for human health. This wax coating gives these fruits artificial freshness and make them look attractive. This also retain the moisture of fruits. Last but not the least, you can consume whole fruit once or twice a week and you must eat apple after peeling its skin.
Veg Or Non Veg- Which Is Good For Health?
Being healthy means absence of any pathology or disease in your body. Being a vegetarian or non-vegetarian cannot guarantee you to be healthy. There are different categories of vegetarianism. For examples lacto vegetarianism, ovo- vegetarianism, lacto- ovo vegetarianism and veganism. Lacto-ovo-vegetarians get nutrients such as protein, fat, vitamins and minerals in a good quantity because they can eat both eggs and milk and dairy products.
Following strictly a vegetarian diet is not good for all as everyone has different genes. Plant based food products always lack in complete protein profile and fats but animal based food products do contain protein and fats in appropriate amount.
Plants produce glucose and stores it in the form of starch. So finally, what are we eating? It is glucose or sugar and our body is not made up of glucose. It is made up of 50% of protein and 47% to 49% of fats! But nowadays everyone is feeding themselves with glucose thinking it is good for their health. This is sad to notice that metabolic disorders are also rising due to the poor quality and wrong choices of food products!
The logic is very simple! If a chair is made up of wood and it breaks then which raw material would you require to repair it? Would you use plastic? I guess No! Because you will require wood to repair wooden chair. Similarly each day our cells die or go for repair. They need the raw material protein and fats in order to get repaired. If you understand the logic, you will be in a much healthier state than ever before!
