I get a number of letters from readers who are struggling to lose weight and frustrated that they aren’t seeing results.
They tell me they’ve reduced back on all the process foods they eat; they’ve stopped drinking entirely; they are no longer eating red meat; they are watching the fat content in their diet like a hawk; they don’t eat past 8 pm at night; they are spending an hour in the gym every morning doing cardio, they are being sure to eat frequently throughout the day; the list goes on.
They think they’re doing everything right, yet they are missing one very crucial element – and element so important in fact that it will make or break the results you see from your weight loss diet program.
I then ask them, do you know what your daily calorie intake is?
Many of them don’t. They figured that since they’ve made the above adjustments, fat loss should start to happen. After all, if you’re eating very healthy food, shouldn’t that equate to weight loss?
Unfortunately not.
What some dieters fail to realize is that calories are what determine weight loss. Not whether you are eating a virtually fat free diet; not whether you are only eating until dinner each night; not whether you pretty much live on the treadmill now.
Nope, it’s total calorie intake. In fact, you could actually eat fast food for every meal and still lose weight, provided your total calorie intake was less than what you needed to maintain your body weight.
Not that I recommend doing so by any means – that’s the short-track to very bad nutrition, but still, to prove the point, even fast food can be part of a weight loss diet if calories are kept in alignment.
Obviously the types of foods you do eat will factor in with things such as hunger level, dietary fiber intake, blood sugar control, energy levels, lean body mass retention, vitamin and mineral status, and so on, so making smart choices is always going to be the best option.
But, don’t let your focus of making smart choices overpower your focus of watching calorie intake.
Even if all you ate was oatmeal, salmon, chicken breasts, egg whites, vegetables, and almonds each day, if you ate too much of those foods, you still won’t lose weight – in fact, you could very well gain weight.
Calories are what matter. When you start counting calories – and you know you’re counting accurately, that’s when you should be approaching someone to ask why you can’t lose weight.
Until you know your daily calorie intake, you cannot assess the real reasons why you are not succeeding with that weight loss plan.
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