calories Archives - The Baby Carrot Thug

You clicked, I baited. Sorry guys, this headline is a total click bait and what you’re about to read about fast weight loss might not be the truth you want to hear, but probably somewhere already kinda know. In this post we will talk about how to actually lose weight fast (and sustainable), how out body uses energy, and put an end to fad diets.

Fitspo, gym bros, and eating disorders.

If the fitspo culture has thought us anything about weight loss is that we’re willing to do anything besides working out and eating healthy. Fat burners, keto diets, calorie restriction, and juice cleanses are just a few examples of this. The fact that our favorite gym bros on Instagram are promoting these diets is not making it any better. Maintaining a healthy weight is important and there is nothing wrong with wanting to shred a few pounds (as long as it’s within a healthy range for you). It becomes a problem when social media profiles (who first of all lives in a bikini-fitness prep all year around) starts giving unrealistic advice to the everyday public on how to achieve these goals. Not to mention how normalized it is for young people do have full blown eating disorders and getting praised for it!?

The different ways your body burns calories.

Before we start talking about the right approach to sustainable weigh loss we have to understand how our body burns calories. When we talk about energy expenditure we tend to lump them into four categories.

BMR.

Your BMR, or basal metabolic rate is the amount of energy you exceed by literally living. You can lay in bed all day, binge watch Netflix and your body would simply just burn these calories. By breathing, keeping our heart beating, and thinking. Clutch or what? What most of us don’t realize is that 70%, aka the majority of our daily energy expenditure comes from our BMR. How much you burn is completely individual. Factors such as age, sex, height, weight, and muscles mass will determine your. You can get a rough estimate by using a BMR calculator. Emphasize on rough estimates!

TEF.

TEF, or thermic effect of food is the calories you burn while digesting the food you eat. Yes you heard me, you actually burn calories by eating food! Different types of food require more or less energy to digest where protein and fiber require slightly more calories than sugar and fat. TEF stands for around 10% of our daily energy expenditure. It’s like having your cake and eating it too. Almost.

NEAT.

NEAT – non exercise activity thermogenesis, or in simple English all the movements you do throughout the day which doesn’t include a “scheduled workout”. This includes literally every movement you do. From walking, to typing on your laptop, or doing the little pee dance when you need to pee but someone is occupying the bathroom. Pretty neat, huh? (major pun intended).

Exercise/physical activity.

And last but not least we have exercise, which actually only accounts for around 5% of your daily energy. Like what!? This tells us that the line “you can’t out-train a bad diet” makes a lot of sense. I mean, maybe not if you’re a pro athlete and exercise like 4 hours daily. Those guys play in a different league! Your focus when exercising should be to build strength and to feel good. It should not be a tool to “burn off as many calories as possible”.

How to achieve sustainable weight loss.

Turtles don’t live until 150 years for nothing. Slow and steady wins the race and the same principle should be applied to weight loss. You have to approach your weight loss as a lifelong change. Yes, it’s cliche but it truly is a lifestyle and your focus should be on building sustainable habits. So let’s get into it. How do you do this?

Throw the scale away.

First things first, the scale does more harm than good. Your weight will fluctuate on a daily basis depending on if you had a saltier meal last night, if you’ve slept poorly, if you’re a female on your period, or if you have more muscle mass – just to name a few reasons. Daily scale check-ins will destroy you mentally and your focus should always be on how your clothes fit, body composition, getting stronger, and feeling amazeballs.

Weight loss vs fat loss.

Losing weight is easy. All you need to do is excessive cardio and cut your calories super low. The weight will drop for sure. Is it sustainable? No. Not at all, and you’re more likely to gain all the weight back – and more. Or you’ll develop an eating disorder which is even worse. Fat loss is the goal and the way to achieve this is by hitting up those heavy weights and staying in a slight, emphasis on slight calorie deficit. Resistance training should be your main focus and cardio just a tool (and also to keep your precious heart healthy). By increasing your muscle mass your BMR will also increase, meaning you can eat more food.

Volume eating.

When dieting or trying to lose weight you need to consume less calories than you need. Slight calorie deficit is the key here and you want o aim for a 300-500 calorie deficit each day. Within your daily caloric intake you can literally eat whatever you want but it’s smart to think about the type of foods you eat to make your journey sustainable.

You want to eat as much as you possibly can within your calorie range. Remember, we are not starving ourselves here! The key is volume eating which means eating bigger volumes of foods low in calories. As you can see by the image below we want to want to eat more food for the same amount of calories. This will increase your satiety, make you feel fuller for longer, and actually not make you hate your life. Not to mention all the vitamins and nutrients you’ll get. Good foods for volume eating include: fruit and vegetables, lean protein, protein yogurts, diet sodas and candy (aspartame is not the devil, I promise), potatoes, and berries (to name a few).

Don’t eliminate food groups.

For the love of God, do not, I repeat, DO NOT restrict yourself! If you’re craving a brownie so bad you’re literally climbing the walls – eat a brownie. Eat it, enjoy it, and get on with your life. It’s better to have a piece of your craving rather than trying to “satisfy” your craving with a bunch of low calorie alternatives or a piece of fruit. You’ll just end up bingeing on a whole plate of brownies instead. Food is not only about calories in and calories out. It’s about pleasure, emotions, and social experiences.

Your mantra should be: “overtime”

What’s important to understand is that weight loss happens over time. It won’t happen in a week, or even a month. 1 kg fat is about 7,000 calories which means that you’re not going to lose it in one day. On the flip side it also mean that you won’t gain 1kg in one day either. So what if you go over your calories for a day, or two, or maybe even a week? It’s alright! As long as you get back on track again you will be fine.

It’s a lifestyle.

If yo didn’t get anything of value from this blog post I want you to leave with this one thing: It’s a lifestyle. You are working on creating the best version of yourself and create habits to keep for the rest of your life. If you’re currently following a fitness plan which you hate down to your core I want you to stop and ask yourself “is this sustainable? Can I do this for the rest of my life?” If the answer is no, then maybe it’s time to have a proper think. And finally, please don’t compare yourself to the fitness models and gym bros you see on social media. A huge chunk of it is not even real (editing, Photoshop etc) and some of these people literally don’t do anything else than workout and eat super clean all year around. As a “normal” person with a 9-5 job this isn’t sustainable. Once again, you want to create a healthy, sustainable life. And yea by the way, you’re super cute and sexy. Good bye.

We have a lot to say about calories. We can’t eat to many of them, because we will gain weight, we can’t eat to few of them because we will reach an unhealthy weight. We count them more intense than we ever did our math homework, and we shame ourselves after eating a food containing “too many” of them.

Calories are simple. They are a unit of energy, that our bodies get from food. They are essential for our life and bodily functions. Calories are our gasoline, our fuel, the hype man that keeps us liiit.

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When we talk about calories we usually think calories in – calories out, and burning more calories than you consume leads to weight loss or weight gain, if the opposite. This is true, but the kind of calories you consume does make a difference in the way our body processes them, and determine fat loss or weight loss.

Nutrition is science, and just as a science experiment react differently to different chemicals, so does our bodies – chemicals being the different kinds of food we eat. Food comes in three major groups – proteins, fats, and carbohydrates (and vitamins and minerals).

For some reason we have put these these guys in different groups, The good group and the bad group. Lately, carbs have been put into the bad group, while fat and protein are the good dudes.

So calories, are they simply just a matter or calories in – calories out. Yes, they are, but our body does process different kinds of calories in different ways, which will result in different results in terms of our body weight and composition. Let’s paint up an example. You are about to get down and dirty on three plates of food containing equally 1000 calories each. The first plate has 1000 calories of fat, the second plate has a 1000 calories of proteins, and the third plate has a 1000 calories of carbs. Out of all these plates, which one would make you put on more weight? You might say that all of them will make you put on the equal amount of weight, right? Not really.

Carbohydrates contains 4 calories per gram. The carbs that we should be eating, from real whole plant based starch such as potatoes, rice, fruit and vegetables contains a shit load of nutrients and fiber, which helps speed up our digestive system, putting our metabolism in high gear. Carbs are not the enemy, contrary to our believes based on fad diets and media. The right form of carbohydrates will not make us fat, they will help us burn fat. Vegetables, fruits, potatoes, rice, whole grains are your best friend in terms of health and managing a stable weight. Of course there’s bad versions of carbs as well such as processed bread with a ton of added ingredients like corn syrup (fancy word for sugar), vegetables oils, and all those other chemical bullshit. Carbohydrates are not the enemy unless we make them the enemy. A pure baked potato with veggies and salsa is not the same as a baked potato loaded with butter, cheese, and bacon. The potato is not the one causing a flabby stomach, it’s the butter, cheese, and bacon. See the difference. Don’t blame the good guy.

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Proteins contain 4 calories per gram, and they are very essential for the majority of things in our body. Our DNA are made out of proteins, our hair, skin, cells, you are basically protein. When you eat the right protein, like whole plant proteins you get your proteins plus an addition of minerals, vitamins, and the astonishing fiber. Our bodies work harder to break the fiber down, and voila, we burn more calories through digestion. Beans and legumes are your best protein buddies! A bunch of your green veggies does also contain a lot of protein, and no additional fat. Eat your plants, people. Another note to think about is that everything contains protein. If you get the right amount of calories that your body needs everyday, you will never become protein deficient.

Fat contains 9 calories per gram. Fat can make us feel fuller when coming from the right sources, such as whole plants like avocados, seeds and nuts. When fat comes from processed fats such as oils and animal based fats without any fiber, it tends to leave us unsatisfied and craving more food, especially more fatty foods and sugar. The fat sources without any fiber isn’t the best friend with our digestive system. Since it’s pure fat, it goes straight into fat storage without leaving us full. It puts pressure on our digestive system, and can cause bloating and constipation. Nobody likes hard shit, let’s get real. Fries, cookies, bacon, and other processed meats will go straight to your waistline, and also into your arteries for that matter, clogging that shit up.

Yes, calories in – calories out is a true statement, but the kind of weight we will gain or loose depends largely on the calories we eat. It also determines how we will loose or put on weight. Processed fats together with animal fat is going to make every calorie less nutritionally dense, and get stored right away on your body as flabby fat. More fiber leads to a higher satisfaction, faster working digestive system, and let’s not forget the most important part – an overall healthy lifestyle! And don’t get me wrong, just because you’re vegan doesn’t mean that everything you eat is magically amazing. Fries are vegan, Oreos, potato chips, and vegetable oils are vegan. The real key here is whole plant based foods. Real foods. Untouched and pure.

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Another side note: Of course life is about pleasure as well, and we can’t eat strictly whole plant based all the time. It’s okay to “treat yo self” and live! That’s as important for a healthy lifestyle. Kale might nourish your body, but chocolate will nourish your soul.

Tag: calories

Fast weight loss successfully.