Caloric intake

[floridaorange]

Once your mindset switches from living to eat to eating to live, you will be where you need to be naturally. With this new mindset you will be listening to what your body needs vs what it wants. Stick to whole foods as much as possible and as long as you are working out every day and eating what you need, you will become naturally lean and mean. It just takes time and the clarity of mind to really do it.

Personally I like to be very very disciplined with workout/diet during the week and then up the calories a little on the weekend enjoying a treat or 2.

Good luck!

[Nahlem]

When i first started eating well, i simply had to restart the whole process from scratch pretty much learning to eat again from start.

Before my health journey i weighted in around 117 kg and with a height of 178 cm i was rather chubby i can tell ya that.

Then i started simply with what is my goal for this journey to lose weight? To keep a healthy life style? And simply determining what i wanted with this change.

Because change can be done in many ways but its keeping that change that is hard.

So i started with simply counting calories, nothing more then that i lay out a plan for me that i would have to choose either i eat the snacks i wanted but then i had to skip the good dinner at home or i simply skip the snacks and eat a proper dinner, i dint restrict my self in that manner but the fact was i had to be properly disciplined with my self with what i eat and add to my calorie log and no cheating, that was the hardest part.

What i mean by that is my goal was to go down to 76 kg from 117, but i didn't want to loose out on those super tasty snacks and such.

So i started counting at first i simply ate snacks and such but never exceeding 2100 calories i think it was for me to loose 0,5 kg every week.

What i noticed fast was how much less of energy i had by consuming snacks compared to real food and how little it kept my belly full because in the end of the day its simply the hunger feeling i hate among the most.

So i naturally started phasing out snacks, chips and sweets from life replacing it with real food and the change was coming in like a freight train when i realised how much i was loosing in weight at the same time feeling like i had more energy then ever before. So i kept up with this habit and dropped quite fast from 117 to 95-->90 kg and then it started to pan out a bit but at this point i had so much more energy that workout during the weeks came naturally for me to spend that extra energy i had so i started running 1 day a week first but starting fast promenades to begin with to evolving to running then the scale started to keep going down again and i hit a road block at 85 kg so i added even more exercise to my routines again. To spend even more of the energy i had while still eating 2100 calories a day. And this is where it started to hit the other way around.

I was spending so much calories that the 2100 calories a day wasn't enough any more to sustain me i started to feel tired and weary so i increased my intake of calories on those days that i was exercising but not with snack but more good foods and fruits like that and the difference was huge i gain even more energy so i increased my workouts to 4-5 days a week. Witch increased my need for calories even more at this point i was running and working out at the gym while still loosing weight with the increased intake so i hit my goal of 76 kg and at this point, i contacted a personal trainer here close to home. Sat down with him talked about the changes i made to my life and so on and how i would proceed the best way from here on to keeping this life style.

So he gave me instructions a food plan and what foods to focus on not any specific brand or so but more on how much protein i am to consume and so on and so forth simply to build muscles now i am at 84 kg and in the best shape of my life.

The change to loose weight is easy but it is to keep the change and living the new life style without falling back in to old patterns that is the hardest part, today i am not counting calories because i have simply learned how to eat properly and what to eat. I also check in on my self from time to time, log a little bit to see that i am keeping up with the changes and not devolving a simple check in on my self from time to time.

And i am keeping steadily at my weight while i feel the strongest i have ever felt while also having more energy then ever before. Today i am not as hard as i was back then with the snacks but i am keeping the snacking to Saturdays only to not get that sugar addiction back again.

[floridaorange]

Going on a walk after meals is also a great way to improve the way glucose is metabolized vs sitting stagnate on the couch.

[JMcLellan]

I have had good luck in the past few years setting a 10 hour eating window per 24 hour period, with 14 hours of fasting. That would typically look like nothing to eat after 6pm and before 8am the next day. I would have water and sometimes a beer/cocktail or two during that window. Doing this while cutting out most carbs I can shed weight pretty quickly.

Since age 30 (42 now) I've been between 192 up to 218 pounds, averaging in the 200 to 205 range. Seems like I swell up to 210 plus, implement lower carb and some fasting and then boom I'm down under 200 in 12 weeks. But then.......it always comes back. It's an up and down process for me. It's like every 2 years I have to get the will power back with the carbs and late night snacking to bring the weight back down. For me caloric intake is more about what I have and when I have it vs counting/cutting calories.