Hi guys.
It's Petrina, your go to girl for learning how to make fit work in a crazy busy world
and today we're going to talk calories.
Is a calorie a calorie a calorie?
Are you stressing too much about calories?
I think you are.
I got an email in my in box today from one of my 21 Day Fix YouTube videos so this is
going to be a little bit 21 Day specific, but I think you can apply it to whatever program
you're following.
Let's answer a question.
Alright, Joann wrote me "I just got my 21 Day Fix today in preparation for starting
on Monday, June 1.
I began to calculate my calorie level.
I weigh 250 pounds.
My calculations said that I was at the 2,400 calorie level.
That can't be right!
That's the highest level!
How am I going to lose weight eating all that food?
Help!"
Joann, anyone who is like doing 21 Day Fix and using the calorie calculation that's provided.
How it works is you enter in what your current weight is and you multiply it by 11 and that's
your caloric baseline and it has you add another 400 for the Fix Calorie Burn since you are
going to be doing Fix workouts each and every day and then you subtract 750 to get your
caloric target.
I'm assuming 2,400 is the number that Joann came up with and that would put her in the
highest bracket in the Fix program, which is eating anywhere from 2,100-2,300 calories
a day.
Okay let's have some tough talk here.
I'm half way tempted to go into a science tangent about calories and whether or not
they're entirely accurate, but let's not do that.
Let's focus on what we're aiming to do and that's educate you on the fact that you can
eat more and still lose weight.
If you're someone who is starting out at 200 pounds and above, maybe you are freaking out
and saying "how the heck am I supposed to lose weight eating double 1,200 calories that
I was told to do on this other crazy diet plan".
The answer really is simple.
Think of it as and I hate to use a car analogy, but the bigger cars and trucks require bigger
fuel tanks.
It takes more to power the bigger cars and the same goes with your body.
When you weigh more, when you have more mass, it's going to take more fueled to just do
the simple basic functions you need to live.
When you figure out what's considered your basal metabolic rate, it's going to vary based
on how much you weigh, whether you're male or female, how old you are and how tall you
are and the basal metabolic rate when you figure it is just the calories you need to
exist.
This is just the calories your body needs to function, to breathe, to blink, to circulate
blood, to power your brain and your nerve functions, to control your body temperature
and to even grow new cells.
It's just what your body needs to be.
That's it.
The other functions that aren't so basic where you're walking around each day from place,
moving, cooking, fixing, cleaning, whatever you're doing.
Even eating.
Eating burns calories because you burn calories digesting the food and absorbing the nutrients.
Everything you do adds on to whatever daily allowance you have as far as 21 Day Fix goes.
There's a rhyme and a reason to it.
It's science.
I would say to trust the process.
Follow the program and see what happens.
I think you'll be amazed.
I've had people come up to me who had a lot of weight to lose and following other diet
programs where they were continually angry and always feeling deprived and low on energy
because they're really not fueling their bodies enough just for that basic function.
Yes, calories are important.
It's not an exact science.
You may need to tweak a plan no matter what plan you're on.
If things aren't working, you can make little tweaks here and there with the macros and
the amounts, but I've been shocked doing this coaching thing.
More often than not, it's people under eating that's causing a stall or a plateau than it
is people over eating.
Calories are important yes, but the quality of calories is important as well, which is
another reason I love 21 Day Fix plan.
It's really high quality, super nutrient dense program.
I love it, trust it.
If you have any questions about it, you can shoot me an email over at CoachPetrina@yahoo.com.
If you like you can check out my crazy sexy cool website over at PetrinaHammFitness.com
or if you're up for it, you can sign up for absolutely free fitness coaching with me at
MakeFitWork.com.
That's it for this week.
Bye guys!