You may not be counting calories or have any idea about calories at all, but CICO (calories in v calories out) is what makes ALL diets work.
Calories are the energy your body needs to function. Eat too many and you put on weight and eat just enough & you maintain weight. The key is to eat less then your body needs but not too few or you will miss out on the right amount of nutrients your body needs. Experts say no loss than 1200 for ladies, 1500 for men.
The above ‘diets’ could very well help you to maintain a deficit without really thinking but what happens when you come off those ‘diets’? With restricting calories too low or cutting out food completely many people gain back some/all/more weight than when they started. You need to be sensible with what you eat, no food is bad.
You see all the time, ladies who are thin but still complain about their bodies, these ladies are generally ‘skinny fat’/stick thin with little to no muscle. Maybe all they did was restrict restrict restrict or they just did cardio all the time, restricting too much means the body will use muscle to fuel the bodies organs rather than just fat.
There are people with youtube channels/blogs who push one way of eating and demonis others. They don’t count calories, they don’t restrict calories etc. They may not be actually counting/tracking calories but they sure are eating less calories than their body needs and definitely less than when they put on the weight.
Remember you don’t need to cut out any foods, just eat in moderation, know your calories in & calories out and you will be fine. You don’t need to eat such & such foods, no food will magically help you lose weight. Apple cider vinegar NO, lemon water in the morning NO, not eating after 8pm NO. They may mean you take in fewer calories but guess what…it’s still CICO. You can still gain weight on vegetables!
It’s all about a healthy life style not just losing weight for that special occasion.
Ways to figure our CICO:
Myfitnesspal You can set up a profile here that will set you a calorie goal for the day. This site works on NEAT so any exercise done is meant to be logged and 1/2 the calories eaten back. Your goal is NET so exercise allows you to eat more.
Scoobysworkshop A better method is to work out your TDEE (total calorie burn a day) and subtract 500-1000 calories to produce your daily goal. If you select sedentary then it’s best to also log exercise and eat some back. With the other settings (if you have selected right) you only need to concentrate on your goal and not log exercise, you will have the same goal each day. This number can be added manual to myfitnesspal.
Remember to weight your food don’t measure it, so many errors can happen with measuring.
This is when everyone says cico don’t work, it’s too hard or too much work. It really isn’t, everyone has 5 mins in a day to track their food. A fitness tracker synced to myfitnesspal makes the calories out even easier. Weight won’t come off the same each week, some weeks you may lose nothing but it all adds up to a loss. If after 8 weeks you aren’t losing then you need to either add more exercise or be better at logging food/reduce calories slightly. It is all trail & error.
