If you are an inactive person who weighs 200 pounds, every nutritional label in America is written for you! If not...they aren't!
I write this blog this morning after spending time last night with 20 or so of my Healthy Weigh friends who just reached goal weight and are now learning what it takes to stay there. I walked them through a process of stabilization; a 6 week process where you increase your calories week by week until you reach your calorie limit based on your goal weight.
Being highly effective people, we began the evening with the end in mind, in this case goal weight. Each client wrote down their ideal maintenance weight and then calculated their approximate calorie intake for that weight based on this chart.
Multiply your ideal maintenance weight by:
10 if you are inactive (sitting most of the day, no regular physical exercise)
11 if you are moderately active (sitting most of the day but do engage in physical exercise regularly or at least 3 to 4 times per week for 1/2 hour or more)
12 if you are active (standing and/ or walking most of the day and engage in regular physical exercise)
13 if you are very active (walking or involved in strenuous physical labor most of the day and engage in regular physical exercise)
That number is your approximate total calories to maintain your goal weight.
Now I know that there are many more complicated ways to estimate and discover your appropriate calorie intake for your goal weight...the truth is, you will find the same answer at the end of every story problem. I've done them!
So, you've done the math??? What's your number???
Last night there were three men in our group. Only two of them were going to be able to eat 2000 calories to maintain their weight. Everyone else in the room ranged from 1250 calories to 1750. So why does every nutritional label in America say..."Based on a 2000 diet."? Good question! The only people that can and should be eating 2000 calories per day are men weighing close to 200 pounds, or a woman who weighs 155 and works in a job performing physical labor all day and then drops by the club to work out on the way home!
I've spent over 30 years helping people lose weight. I am proud to say that I administer one of the greatest weight loss programs available any where...but losing weight has never been the hard part. People knuckle down, eat less, move more and then lose weight.
Keeping if off for life is the struggle. I believe that our nutritional labels aren't helping matters. It would make sense that most people in America would believe that they should eat 2000 calories...right? It says that on the back of every food label everywhere!!!
I read an article the other day in search of an answer to this problem. It said that 2000 calories per day was used as a standard because that is how many calories it would take to maintain the average American. Wow, how sad is that? What if our labels said "Based on a 1500 calorie diet?" What would the average American look like then?
I am a 120 pound 53 year old woman. I exercise 3 to 4 times a week for 1/2 or more. My maintenance calories are 1320. That's it...no more. No matter what a label says, I am responsible for consuming the amount of healthy calories that my body needs to maintain this healthy weight.
Do the math. Accept the truth. Be responsible. Reach your goal weight and keep it off for life...eating just the amount of calories that YOU need to maintain your ideal maintenance weight!
Always encouraging you...and hopefully enlightening you too,
Letha
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