At the end of the day, every single diet, no matter what it is, to lose, gain, or maintain weight, it’s ALL comes back to calories! But I promise, I'm not gonna recommend counting calories (unless you can rock it, and that's your style, then do it!). Instead my goal is to EDUCATE you on basic body functions (because let's be honest... it's easier to make better decisions if we are better informed!).

⭐️What is a calorie?⭐️
A calorie is a unit of measurement that represents the amount of energy your body gains upon consumption. Simply put, how many calories within a certain food product, is telling you the amount of energy you are going to get from that product.

Calories are directly related to your weight. When you eat more calories that your body needs energy wise, that is considered a calorie surplus and your body will store those calories as muscle or fat. When you eat less calories that what you burn in a day, then that is a calorie deficit. When someone loses weight, they had to have a calorie deficit for that to happen.

Just like our image today shows, 3500 calories is approximately 1 pound.
✔️If you consume 3500 extra calories than your body burns, you’ll gain 1 pound.
✔️If you cut 3500 calories from your diet, or burn (through exercise, etc) 3500 more calories than you eat, you’ll lose 1 pound.

⭐️How many calories should I have in a day?⭐️
WebMD has a really great chart that covers men, women, and children on how many calories they should aim for in a day to maintain weight depending on your activity levels throughout the day.

Check it out here: https://buff.ly/2R0VIIW

Did you feel surprised by any of the numbers they provided? I like to use these as a mental guide to know in the back of my mind what I roughly need to be aiming towards each day. When I go out to eat, and I see on the menu that a pasta dish is 1400 calories, but I know that I’m recommended for 2000-2200 TOTAL for an entire day, I’m more likely to hit pause, order a side salad and not finish the entire plate of pasta to help me stay more within my range, but not deny myself a good meal on a date night!

👉NOTE: I’m giving you these numbers NOT to stress you or to make them the focus of your healthy journey, but because it’s fact, and it’s how our bodies were designed to work! If you generally know how many calories your body needs per day to lose, maintain, or gain weight, it can also help you make more informed decisions when you are out to eat and more! I FIRMLY believe that you should stay off the scale and not focus on counting calories… it can easily be all consuming and I really want your heart & mindset to be focused on your long term health and NOT a number you see on the scale. Over the course I’ll be sharing tips on how you can easily cut calories without feeling restricted in your diet or having to count them! That combined with our bootcamp, and your body will naturally do its thing! God designed it to work in amazing ways when we take care of it! For example, sometimes we stall out on our weight because our body is building muscle while burning fat and muscle is heavier than fat! So that’s why I really push for non-scale victories and not numbers!

⭐️You should be aware of what calories are and how they work in your body, but that should NOT be your focus… because if it is, it makes it a million times hard to actually fuel your body with nutrients!

⭐️So I just need to eat less calories to lose weight?⭐️
Technically, yes. But there is one thing that I want you to take from today: calories aren’t all the same. Two foods can have the same number of calories, but based on their macros (nutrients) will process so different in your body!

Counting calories can be helpful in some circumstances, but it’s important to remember to always choose quality over just the number of calories a food contains.

This is where you’ve probably heard of “empty calories”... when you feed your body calories for energy, but the food doesn’t contain the right nutrients to give your body what it really wants, so a few hours later you may be hungry again!

Instead of focusing on counting calories, focus on the types of foods that fuel you and give you what you need for optimum health. Tomorrow we will be talking about how you can start getting into the mindset of fueling your body!

⭐️ACTION: After learning about calories, do you think that you’re on target for eating the recommended number of calories recommended per day? Or do you think that you’re over or under?⭐️