October 15, 2015

Beginning to understand the body


biscuit-932692_1280The process of weight loss primarily through calorie counting has really helped me begin to understand the body. For instance I could never understand how morbidly obese people could lose weight in astonishing amounts over short periods of time while most of us find it difficult to lose weight the less overweight we are. For example it won’t take very long -with diet and small amounts of exercise, for a morbidly obese person to lose 100 pounds but if you’re merely 20- 30 pounds overweight you’ll have to put in quite a bit more effort to shed the pounds. Well now I’ve learned the more overweight you are the more your body expedites energy in your daily movement, your body needs to burn more energy to keep going. The more weight you lose the less energy it takes your body to keep going so you have to put in far more effort. Of course the other component is calories in, the amount of energy you give your body. If you always give your body the amount of energy it burns you won’t lose anything, you’ll stay the same. Once you start to consume less calories than you burn you’ll lose and if you consume more then you burn, you’ll gain.

Another question I didn’t understand -why is it easier to lose weight as you get older? Besides for a few moment here and there I was never an athletic person. When I look back on my youth the only increased effort I can think of is that I walked back and forth to school most days in high school and college but my diet back then, certainly in high school was worse than now. Well, as time goes on our body simply don’t release as much energy so even if you did all the same things as you age you’ll put on a few pounds, so if you want to lose or even stay the same you have to eat less or exercise more.

Maybe this is stuff most of you know but it’s been a big eye opener for me. Weight loss is largely a very logical feat. You can either eat less, exercise more or both. The journey to health isn’t just about calories, I’m currently interested in eating for my dosha (Ayurvedic medicine), but it helps a lot. Eating at about 1300 calories daily helps to guide me towards healthier eating simply because a muffin and Starbucks coffee can ‘cost’ 800 calories while a largely vegetable dish ‘costs’ significantly less.

We don’t -and I certainly didn’t, purposefully gain weight. Whether there’s an emotion occurrence that triggers weight gain or we just started enjoying our food too much, weight gain is largely an issue of being unaware. Losing weight can not only help us fit in to our old clothes but also regain consciousness and maybe when we’re ready, dust off an old Ghazali book and remember food is hardly the point of life.

If you need any help counting calories, figuring out how many calories you burn or setting up and account to keep track of your food click here, here, here and here (this is what I’ve been using).

print

© Fig & Olive design by Blog Milk