A Little Cheat For You All

KerryWelly

Hi guys, I've come back to this site again after maintaining my weigh easily on my own for years with good food and exercise, because I needed somewhere to log foods I was eating and exercise I was doing and my weighloss and inch loss achievements after having my second child. Unfortunately with my little darling Liam I craved some rather terrible foods, doughnuts with custard centres, and pork....pork in any form....scratchings, belly (grilled until really reallly crispy) roast and bacon...and potatoes, chips in particular, home made, deep fried chips - terrible I know!!! Anywho, as a result I manged to pile on a whopping 3 stones in pregnancy.....I only put on 16lbs with my daughter and had lost it within 2 months!!! don't know why Liam was different to Heidi, but he was and I was left, bloated, fat and looking more 'tummy mummy' than 'yummy mummy'!!

Anyway my reason for this post?

I started of on the site putting in I wanted to lose around 60lbs and I did the old, 2lbs per week and found that I was allowed 1200 calories per day.....sounds simple right? Nope, it's too easy, even eating he way I eat, home cooked meat, veg and rice/potatoes, nothing from packets and certainly no processed foods to scoff 1200 calories per day and find you're still hungry then cheating and feeling awful because this site states at the bottom of the page, If every day were like today you'd weigh'...and it shows a gain! Disheartening right? You've all been there!!!

My point?

The problem with 1200 calories a day is that it is quite simply not enough calories per day to sustain you, it's likely to have the opposite effect of pushing your body into something known as 'survival mode' this means that your metabolism slows down, to try and preserve every bit of energy because it thinks it's entered a period of famine....Aren't our bodies wonderful things, they'll do everything to preserve our life.....unfortunately whilst in 'survival mode' it's very very hard to lose weight!

The solution?

This one rule that I used, goes against everything that you think you know about dieting.

'EAT MORE, LOSE MORE' I'm serious, the more food you eat the more weight you will lose, but you MUST try to eat only unprocessed and natural foods, sometimes referred to as the 'Caveman Diet', i.e fresh fruit and veg, grains and pulses, lean meats and fish, and the occasional, and only occassional mind you treat of chocolate or crisps or whatever your little vice might be...

How do you acheive this?

Easy, ever heard of RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) or BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate)??

These specify the amount of calories you need each day just to survive, just to sit on your backside and watch TV or just to lie in bed.....you're burning calories all the time, even when you blink!!! Seriously!

How do I know this?

I'm doing a 4 year degree in Human Biology so that I can work as a dietician when I'm finished, I hope to work with children with learning disabilies, and I sat there looking at yet another failed day on my diet, at the bottom in black 'if every day were like today, you'd weigh'...and then in bright red it told me I was going to PUT ON WEIGHT, I felt so down and disheartened, then I realised I was allowing the 'diet industry' to brain wash me again, I'm a dietician for goodness sake, I'm 2 years into a degree that will qualify me as such, I know how the human body works, why am I sat here worrying that I've eaten 1400 calories today, convincing myself that I'm jsut going to pile more weight on??? It isn't true, even 1400 calories per day isn't enough to sustain me, I know this because I know my BMR is 1880 calories per day, so really in reality I have a deficit of 480 calories for one day, I'm 480 calories under the amount I need just to sit still all day but I haven't have I? No, I've been up and down staris about 50 times today, walked round the shop with my son strapped to my chest and my disabled daugher in her mobility buggy, despite the fact I've lifted my disabled daughter (who weighs 3 stones) up and down the stairs 6 times today, hoovered, ironed, put clothes away, cleaned the kitchen......etc etc(insert any mummy job you care to here)...all of that I can count an extra 300-500 calories per day onto my 1880....so why am I fretting about being over my calorie allowance when I don't need to? Because the diet industry told me I should worry! And that from someone who should know better, so I feel sorry for anyone just starting out without the knowledge I have!

The Fix?

I went to my settings and changed my weigh loss goal to 'maintain my current weight' that gave me my daily RMR, and now I fall at least 250 caloreis below that, then I add on my exercise (I love to exercise) and leave 250 calories of that each day, 500 calories per day under my RMR with exercise added.......and we all know what 3500 calories per week amount to don't we??? That's a 1lb loss per week, since I switched to this method, I feel mroe bouyed on because I've actually got calories left over at the end of the day and for the month of January (actually for 3 weeks of January - cos I started this one week into it) I lost 6lbs, thats 3 bags of sugar (english measurements) off of my body!!!! that's a lb short of half a stone and if I continue with that weight loss I'll be back to pre-pregnancy weight by June!!! Also notice, I've dropped
3500 calories per week, and lost 2lbs per week, my body is working efficiently to burn calories becuase it KNOWS it's going to get another meal.... I have a supercharged metabolism from eating 'too many calories' or so the diet industry will have you believe!

Go on try it for a couple of weeks, it'll work, I'm living, walking and talking proof of it!!

Love and peace to you all!

SJT75

Very interesting :-)

Hannastyrbjorn

tnx for the post i agree, its not beneficial for anyone to beat yourself up when you take in too many kcals one day. to find a balance is the most important thing to maintain your loss