Trouble Losing Weight
One of the most common teenage problems is losing weight. Be it a skinny girl who thinks she’s fat when in reality she’s not, or a guy who really wants to show off his six packs to his friends, there is one simple way to lose weight. Track your calories and frequently exercise, of course! A calorie is the unit for energy for which the food you consume will be converted into after digestion. These calories will be burnt off during exercise after being converted from glucose or stored in the muscle tissues as glycogen or fats.
The idea of calorie tracking to manipulate your weight is indeed very simple. If you want to lose weight, simply have a daily calorie deficit. For guys who want to gain mass, simply do the opposite which is a daily calorie surplus. Before doing anything however, you must first determine your maintenance calorie amount. This can be done by either finding some spreadsheet formulas online or trying out different daily calorie amounts every 2-3 weeks to find out which amount causes the least fluctuation in your weight. After that, you will be able to manipulate your weight with ease simply by adjusting your calorie intake, either adding or subtracting 100-200 calories each week. Caution must be taken when going on an excessive calorie surplus or deficit as this can lead to either anorexia or obesity.
This is where I point out that calorie tracking must come hand in hand with counting your macronutrients and micronutrients. The 3 main macronutrients are protein, carbohydrates and fats. Micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals are only needed in small amounts compared to macronutrients. However, micronutrients are essential for good health and micronutrient deficiencies can cause serious health problems. This combination of calorie counting and micro/macronutrient tracking is also known as flexible dieting.
Most of you fitness freaks may not know about this flexible dieting. This is because there is a misconception in the fitness world that in order to be fit or lose weight, one must abide by the rules of clean eating. Clean eating is what most of you have either heard or read about over the years from fitness blogs to health magazines. The term clean eating refers to high nutrient dense food with the least possible amount of preservatives, colouring and additives. Examples of such foods are sweet potatoes, brown rice, oats, broccoli and many other veggies, chicken breast, turkey breast, egg whites and etc. Processed foods such as potato chips and ice cream are considered off limits because these foods have inefficient nutritional value. The difference between flexible dieting and clean eating is that as long as you keep your macros in check, having a large fast food meal isn’t as much of a sin to flexible dieting as it is to clean eating. In reality, clean eating has been proven to cause weight gain instead of weight loss! This is because flexible dieting involves the tracking of what you eat everyday and how much calories each meal contains while clean eating is just an assumption that eating healthy foods no matter how much will result in weight loss.
Therefore, if you want to lose weight, calorie tracking and making sure you have your macro/micronutrients in check is the way to go.
By Chiang Kah Chun
The idea of calorie tracking to manipulate your weight is indeed very simple. If you want to lose weight, simply have a daily calorie deficit. For guys who want to gain mass, simply do the opposite which is a daily calorie surplus. Before doing anything however, you must first determine your maintenance calorie amount. This can be done by either finding some spreadsheet formulas online or trying out different daily calorie amounts every 2-3 weeks to find out which amount causes the least fluctuation in your weight. After that, you will be able to manipulate your weight with ease simply by adjusting your calorie intake, either adding or subtracting 100-200 calories each week. Caution must be taken when going on an excessive calorie surplus or deficit as this can lead to either anorexia or obesity.
This is where I point out that calorie tracking must come hand in hand with counting your macronutrients and micronutrients. The 3 main macronutrients are protein, carbohydrates and fats. Micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals are only needed in small amounts compared to macronutrients. However, micronutrients are essential for good health and micronutrient deficiencies can cause serious health problems. This combination of calorie counting and micro/macronutrient tracking is also known as flexible dieting.
Most of you fitness freaks may not know about this flexible dieting. This is because there is a misconception in the fitness world that in order to be fit or lose weight, one must abide by the rules of clean eating. Clean eating is what most of you have either heard or read about over the years from fitness blogs to health magazines. The term clean eating refers to high nutrient dense food with the least possible amount of preservatives, colouring and additives. Examples of such foods are sweet potatoes, brown rice, oats, broccoli and many other veggies, chicken breast, turkey breast, egg whites and etc. Processed foods such as potato chips and ice cream are considered off limits because these foods have inefficient nutritional value. The difference between flexible dieting and clean eating is that as long as you keep your macros in check, having a large fast food meal isn’t as much of a sin to flexible dieting as it is to clean eating. In reality, clean eating has been proven to cause weight gain instead of weight loss! This is because flexible dieting involves the tracking of what you eat everyday and how much calories each meal contains while clean eating is just an assumption that eating healthy foods no matter how much will result in weight loss.
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| A sample contents of clean eating diet |
Therefore, if you want to lose weight, calorie tracking and making sure you have your macro/micronutrients in check is the way to go.
By Chiang Kah Chun
