Everybody wants to lose weight, but as the saying goes, “It’s easier said than done.” If you live in Brownsville, the Rio Grande Valley or really anywhere in the United States and even Mexico you’ll have a hard time losing weight. Not surprisingly both countries are the top 2 fattest countries on the planet with US coming in a 31.8% obesity rate and Mexico topping out at 32.8%. What does this percentage mean? Well you can take randomly 10 people and 3 of them are going to be obese, or if you want to go higher for every 100 people there will be 30 that will be obese, pretty scary if you think about it.
Now not everyone may have the will power to diet and exercise and change their entire eating lifestyle, but what if you could lose pounds without sacrificing what you eat? Well it all starts with understanding calories. Every time you eat something, you’re adding calories to your body. 1 pound is equal to roughly 3500 calories so obviously if you consume too many calories then you will gain pounds. A lot of people make excuses for being overweight, but the truth of the matter is, the only way you can really gain weight is by eating. Think of a water balloon for example, you put water in it, it gets big, you squeeze water out, it gets smaller, not much to explain, same as the human body. People will say it’s because of the genes or they are big boned which is just a myth, simply its just what you eat. Another thing to know is how many calories your body burns without actually exercising, this is called basal metabolic rate (BMR). Everyone’s BMR is different, factors include age, sex, weight, height but you can calculate by entering the details on this calculator I found.
Did you get your BMR? Mine for example happens to be just around 2000 calories, so even if I don’t do anything this is how many calories my body burns off by me just sitting on my computer. So if I want to lose pounds, I just need to eat less than what my body consumes, if I eat more than my body consumes then I gain weight.
So exactly what do you need to do so you can eat what you want and shed the pounds? Well if you understand where I’m going with this, all it takes is eating a bit less of what you already eat. Let’s take an example, you go to McDonald’s and order a Double Quarter Pounder (you know one meat ain’t cutting it these days 😀 ) with Large Fries and a Large Coke. The burger itself has 740 calories, the fries have 510 calories and the large coke with 310 calories, a total of 1560 calories !!! so if I was going during lunch to my local McDonalds and ate this, this would leave me with 440 calories to spare before hitting my daily BMR, but I forgot to include what I had for breakfast and dinner and everything else in between so more than likely I consumed about 2500 – 3000 calories for the day, and if you add 500 calories here and there, then in no time the pounds start packing. So let’s a different approach, what if we go into McDonald’s and order the same burger but when the lady asks what size? Tell them small size. Now we will still be eating the same burger which will have the same calories at 740 but since we changed a key difference in the size of the fries and coke, the fries will now have 230 calories and the coke will have 150 calories, for a total of 1120 calories going with the small meal, the difference between eating the big ass meal and small one is 440 calories, you still had the same sized burger but by just changing to smaller fries and coke you have made a big difference. It may not seem like a lot at first but just think to yourself, how many times do you go out to eat during the week? or during the month? It doesn’t have to be just hamburgers, instead of going to Ultimo Taco and eating 6 tacos, try eating 4 tacos instead, instead of going to Stripes and getting that 20oz Coke, get the classic 12oz can. Try this for one whole month and you’ll see difference of what I’m talking about.
If you don’t eat out often and eat at home, you can make small changes there also. Try buying a smaller set of plates and basically eat the same thing. Since you have a smaller plate, you’ll have a smaller portion of whatever you eating and that will mean less calorie intake. I’ve been researching that your mind plays a lot of tricks on you, so if you have a smaller plate of food, you will feel full despite that you may have eaten less than what you’re accustomed to.
I’ve been trying this technique so far this summer and along with exercise I have dropped a total of 5 pounds. I still eat pretty much the same thing, burgers, hotdogs, have BBQ on the weekends, drink Beer but it’s just about having a little bit less each time and with that small change made me go into other changes such as drinking water through out the day instead of drinking juice. It all has to start somewhere and in reality is not as hard as you think it is.
Hope you guys enjoyed this.
Be the first to comment