Thank you Kelly! I needed this!
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For this weeks healthy tip, ask yourself:
"Am I eating enough?"
Contrary to popular belief, sometimes you have to eat more to lose weight. While that may sound counterintuitive, it often does the trick. Here's why:
1. Metabolism is the key to weight loss. If you don't eat enough, or often enough, your metabolism slows to a crawl and weight loss becomes more difficult, especially when you're exercising. That's why skipping meals isn't a good idea if the goal is to shed pounds.
Tip: Always eat breakfast to kick-start metabolism and try eating mini-meals throughout the day to keep your metabolism fired up.
2. To keep your metabolism up, you MUST eat. Conventional wisdom dictates that when you first start dieting, the less you eat, the better. While it's true that you often should eat less, eating too little can backfire over time. As your body composition changes, your body will think it's starving, which can make it hold on to fat. (The process actually has to do with excessive release of a hormone called cortisol, but you don't need to know the details, so we'll just call it fat.) To avoid this, most experts agree that over time, you shouldn't eat fewer than 1,200 calories per day for women, 1,500 for men. If your daily diet consists of fewer calories than that, consider eating more.
Tip: Keep a food diary to track calories.
3. You need more calories when you work out. If you're exercising while following a low-calorie eating plan, you'll need to take into account the calories you're burning. That's because it's now easier to enter starvation mode. Let's say you're burning 400 calories and only eating 1,200 to 1,300 calories per day. This means you're really only taking in 800 to 900 calories per day before you begin to calculate how your body composition is changing. Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat does, so as your body changes, you need to eat more to keep the weight loss coming.
Tip: Drink an after-workout recovery drink. (Just read in Costco magazine that low to non-fat chocolate milks works well as a recovery drink.) After hard workouts, its calories are utilized so quickly by your body. They will ensure your muscles, hence, your metabolism will recover quickly.
For this weeks healthy tip, ask yourself:
"Am I eating enough?"
Contrary to popular belief, sometimes you have to eat more to lose weight. While that may sound counterintuitive, it often does the trick. Here's why:
1. Metabolism is the key to weight loss. If you don't eat enough, or often enough, your metabolism slows to a crawl and weight loss becomes more difficult, especially when you're exercising. That's why skipping meals isn't a good idea if the goal is to shed pounds.
Tip: Always eat breakfast to kick-start metabolism and try eating mini-meals throughout the day to keep your metabolism fired up.
2. To keep your metabolism up, you MUST eat. Conventional wisdom dictates that when you first start dieting, the less you eat, the better. While it's true that you often should eat less, eating too little can backfire over time. As your body composition changes, your body will think it's starving, which can make it hold on to fat. (The process actually has to do with excessive release of a hormone called cortisol, but you don't need to know the details, so we'll just call it fat.) To avoid this, most experts agree that over time, you shouldn't eat fewer than 1,200 calories per day for women, 1,500 for men. If your daily diet consists of fewer calories than that, consider eating more.
Tip: Keep a food diary to track calories.
3. You need more calories when you work out. If you're exercising while following a low-calorie eating plan, you'll need to take into account the calories you're burning. That's because it's now easier to enter starvation mode. Let's say you're burning 400 calories and only eating 1,200 to 1,300 calories per day. This means you're really only taking in 800 to 900 calories per day before you begin to calculate how your body composition is changing. Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat does, so as your body changes, you need to eat more to keep the weight loss coming.
Tip: Drink an after-workout recovery drink. (Just read in Costco magazine that low to non-fat chocolate milks works well as a recovery drink.) After hard workouts, its calories are utilized so quickly by your body. They will ensure your muscles, hence, your metabolism will recover quickly.
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