The challenge is that while it’s easy to eat the calories and put on the weight, taking the weight off in a health way that encourages fat (not muscle) loss, is not so easy. Most of your calorie-rich foods come from restaurants or processed foods. While it is best to do without them because they are often high in calories and low in nutrients, you do not have to eliminate them from your diet. You just need to choose wisely.
To show you how caloric balance works, here are some examples of popular foods from restaurants and the amount of activity required to burn the calories you just ate.
Breakfast at Starbucks
White Chocolate Mocha (w/ nonfat milk and whipped cream): 520 cal, 14g of fat
Total 870cal, 24g of fat
If you weigh 150 pounds, you would have to do one of the following activities to burn this many calories:
- Bicycle at 10 miles per hour (6 min/mile) for 2 hours and 20 min
- Jog at 10 miles per hour (6 min/mile) for 1 hour and 15 min
- Walk at 4 miles per hour (15 min/mile) for 3 hours
- Weight train with 60 sec between sets for 90 minutes
And that’s just for breakfast! You can see that eating out can be very costly to your waist-line, and while you are getting plently of calories, you are NOT getting vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. Becasuse these nutrients are essential to your health, your body will drive you to eat more, even after you have had all of these calories at breakfast, until you have eaten something that has the nutrients it needs. This explains why people who eat a lot of processed foods are hungry all the time. Their body is getting calories but not the essential nutrients.
Lemonade (20oz) 100 cal, 0g of fat
Total 1040 cal, 62 g of fat
Grilled Chicken on the Barbie and Fresh Vegetables: 633 cal, 27 g of fat
Iced Tea: 0 cal, 0 g of fat
Total 1153 cal, 55 g of fat
While this person made fairly healthy choices at each of these places (compared to some of the more calorically and fat dense options), you can still see that the total calories for the day were: 3063.
Considering the average person needs about 2000 calories and those trying to lose weight should eat 1200-1800 calories, eating out can be very challenging, if you are trying to maintain or lose weight, as you would have to do an intense weight workout for a minimum of 3 hours in order to maintain your weight and even more to lose weight. This is not realistic, nor is it smart, as your body will quickly go into over training and fatigue.
While choosing healthy choices when you go out is a good start, you may also want to consider the following:
- Eat 1/2 of your meal and share the other 1/2 with a friend
- Choose to eat out only a couple of times a month
- Ask that your food be prepared without oil/butter and have sauces/dressings on the side
- If you are going to eat it, ENJOY it! Guilt usually leads to you wanting more and overeating. Eat slowly and enjoy the food in front of you
Keep in mind that foods you prepare at home can be just as high in calories and fat as the ones that you order out. The key is to KNOW what you are consuming so that you can appropriately select your portion of that food and then PLAN your exercise choices, intensities, and duration around what you are consuming.
This year, when you set your new year’s resolution, envision the person that inspires you most, then envision your ideal self. As you move through each day, focus on making the choices that your BEST SELF would make.
Monday, December 27th, 2010, 5:38 pm | 
Uncategorized | 
RSS feed
| 
Respond | 
Trackback
