Good Monday!
Third week of April already ,the time just flies! In this post, I would like to share my opinion based on researched information and my personal advice about what is the best healthy way and the importance to do the right steps to have a successful journey to improve your health.
Firstly, I don’t believe in shortcuts, easy solutions at fast pace , it could have several negative consequences for your health ,the same as keep you away from your goals. Example it could be drink smoothies instead your lunch or do determined detox diet. Fruit has sugar and maybe in the beginning your will see some changes on your weight,but it is only temporally ,as it is a consequence of change your diet and that’s why your body could start to process in different way until you get used to. Once that happen, you will start putting on weight as the sugar will storage as fat and it would be harder to loss it. So this is one of the examples of many others, only is one way : Diet and Exercise balance creating a Deficit Caloric on a right way.
Given these reasons, I would like to suggest you a few tips about how to work on your goal and knowing why and how to do it,so here we go:
1. Diet: the OMS ( World Health Organisation,2003 ) recommends a daily balance diet of 55% Carbs, 15 % Protein and 20% Fat. You can consider this as a good reference for a standard individual ,who doesn’t have any special needs or doesn’t train for performance or for a specific endurance or strength goal because in this case the amount will change.
2. Metabolic Basal:This refers to the minimum amount of energy that your body need even on rest mood to keep functioning,breathing and keep you breathing .
Every individual will have a different amount of calories per day ,as it is calculated based on your age,sex,high and weight. This factor is important to know because the metabolic basal number is crucial for maintain a healthy organism knowing the amount of kcal that your body need and also it will be the starting point for your nutrition plan,allowing you to calculate the amount of kcal you need to design your nutrition plan based on your goal: loss weight,earn muscle,etc.
The formula is easy, believe me! : Revised Harris-Benedict BMR Equations (calories/day):
Male: (88.4 + 13.4 x weight) + (4.8 x height) – (5.68 x age)
Female: (447.6 + 9.25 x weight) + (3.10 x height) – (4.33 x age)
For example : Linda is 165cm height, 28 years old and 60 kg weight.(447.6+9.25x60)+(3.10x165)-(4.33x28) =1,396 Kcal (BMR)
This means that Linda burns 1,396 kcal per day based on the daily metabolism activity.
So ,what happen next?
If Linda would like to lose weight, it is necessary to reduce a controlled amount of calories and active lifestyle to loss weight on a healthy weigh.
For this reason ,it is important to know the recommended weight standards and BMI of the determined individual like Linda.
3.BMI:It is means Body Mass Index,stablished by Adolphe Quetelet, a Belgian astronimist and socialist, who after great studies back to 1930 to find out a healthy classification to approach the population to know what it is their healthy profile, allowing you to know on which weight Category your are sitting ,considering the below:
BMI Categories:
Underweight = <18.5
Normal weight = 18.5–24.9
Overweight = 25–29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater
Linda in this case will be BMI : 22 , which is a Normal ,but if she would be 70kg, it would be Overweight, recommending her to lose between 5kg to be on a normal parameter.
With a simple calculation , considering your high and your weight for an standard person without anomalies, you can find a guide about which path are your sitting on.
Of course ,it is important to consider the weight recommendations for determinate age ,the percentile establish specially for kids and the individual characteristics for more further details.
3. Activity Level:Knowing the previous details,it is necessary to know your level of activity to know the exactly amount of Calories that you body need as a energy every day. for this reason,see the rate below :
• Sedentary (poor activity)
• Active : Exercises/sports 1-3 times per week ( walk hours a day)
• Moderate Active :Exercises/sports 3-5 times per week
• Very Active :Exercises/sports 6-7 times per week
• Hard Active : Very hard exercise or physical job
As you can see below, if Linda would be 70Kilos, she will need to eat 1,652 kcal/ day to loose 500grm per week or 1,152 per day. However, see the next point where you can see the details regarding to the healthy way to reduce the intake calories.
4.Recommended Kilograms to loss on a healthy week per week:It is recommended to not loss over 1% of your weight per week. For example, Linda with 60kg ,she could loose 650gr,even it is less than that is good, as it is still losing weight on a heathy way. The reason is that loosing more weight,you could suffer a dehydration,loss muscle mass than recommended instead fat and also you could suffer a " Rebound Effect".
And how is the translation of this is calories?This means she need to reduce 500kcal intake. As you can see on the chart above.
5. Track your calories intake:Now we know why and how we need to control our food and the importance of the physical activity,but how we know the good and bad calories that we eat and how to track them? I found a great way to learn about food a d also track my calories and this isMy Fitness Pal app! There is many of this tools all around media but this is which one I had experienced and I love it! It has a barcode reader to scan he label of the food and also you can add your daily activity,which will help to track your overall calories ,of course you need to be strong and introduce this details every day, but you don't worry,it is easy!.
6:Intensity of the exercise: As important as the calories,it is the intensity of your workouts to get all the benefits of it knowing that it would work. For this reason, you need to work on a fat burn training zone settled between 60-70% of your Heart Rate at least 3-5 days a week during 30-60min. No only accounts cardio,every activity that makes you to work on this zone will be beneficial for it. Maybe cardio machine intervals including resistance or tempo sets could be an option or HIIT that you can maintain on this level. But as everyone has different level of fitness and different Heart rate, being necessary to consider different factors to establish the workouts zones of each individual.So to understand this properly,let's wait for the further post !,
In conclusion , check diet recommendations with a nutritionist and have done medical test with a profesional before follow any advice without knowing what you are doing,as everybody is different with different needs and the most important thing, be sure that you are on the right healthy path.
Have a great week and let's start the way to the summer on the right way!
Miriam Jimenez