Health
331. How To Calculate Your Calories For Fat Loss Even If You Do NOT Want To Track Your Food (Fit Girl Fall)
In this episode, we explore effective methods for calculating your calories for fat loss without the need for strict food tracking. Discover how to create sustainable habits and understand your body&#...
331. How To Calculate Your Calories For Fat Loss Even If You Do NOT Want To Track Your Food (Fit Girl Fall)
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Interactive Transcript
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Fit Girlfall is officially happening.
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Alongside biweekly episodes on this podcast,
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our 31-day challenge is in full swing this October,
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and it is not too late to join us.
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This challenge is designed to make fat loss simple
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by focusing on what actually works.
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Structured, high protein and high fiber meals
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to curb cravings and naturally boost your metabolism.
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Fresh fall recipes using easy to create meals
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that are going to help you stay consistent
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even with how busy you are.
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And most importantly, a clear plan.
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This challenge is built on consistent
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but powerful habits that really will move
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the needle on your progress.
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We also have some insane bonuses,
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some of which are weekly coaching calls
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and daily structure we infuse into this challenge
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to help you stay on track, see progress,
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and most importantly, feel amazing as you do it all month long.
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Grab your spot.
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It's not too late to join us for the Fit Girlfall challenge this year.
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The link is in the show notes
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and I'm so excited for you to jump in with us.
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Hello, my beautiful people,
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and welcome back to another episode of Fit Girlfall
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on the Hot Healthy Never Hungry Podcast.
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Coming in with episodes that at least the recording time
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of the topic are gonna be 10 minutes or less,
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adding in some of the intros and reviews
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if I go a little bit over.
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But I'm so excited.
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These are short tangible episodes
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to really help you up level and get in the best shape this fall
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because there are so many little tweaks,
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some little things you can begin doing
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that aren't gonna take even a ton of effort.
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And you'll be well on your way to shutting fat,
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which is the theme of this year's Fit Girlfall.
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Just getting a great shape that you can sustain
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and maintain for the rest of your life.
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Today's episode is the topic I've been wanting to do for a while
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on calculating your calories
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and really the two go to ways that I really see many women
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using and kind of walking you through that process.
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So we're gonna dive into the two ways to calculate your calories.
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I'll break it down for you guys.
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Before that, we got a lovely review
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from a woman named Jenny that I wanted to give a shout out to.
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She said, so thankful for this podcast.
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I wanted to take a moment and say how thankful I am for this podcast.
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I am a mom that isn't quite sure how to get everything done in a day,
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especially when it comes to making my nutrition and health a priority.
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In the world of social media,
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there's so much misinformation that it becomes overwhelming
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and confusing to know exactly where to even begin.
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Lauren Kuss through all the chaos
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by giving you helpful advice regarding nutrition and fitness.
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The fact that she not only lives what she teaches
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but is also a registered dietitian
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truly makes me feel like I'm listening to a trusted and knowledgeable friend.
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Thank you for all that you do Lauren.
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Please never stop doing this podcast
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you are helping so many more women than you even know.
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Oh my gosh.
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Tears, instant tears,
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truly such a kind message.
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I am so thankful for a woman like you.
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I mean, I need to make that my alarm clock in the morning.
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You're getting me excited to wake up
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and be able to do this show for you guys.
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And I really hope today's episode really hits the same spot, Jenny.
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For you and so many lovely women who listen to this show.
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If you like Ficarra Fall,
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just be sure to leave a rating review
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follow the show whenever platform that you listen to.
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And I'm so appreciative of you taking the time
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to leave that rating and review Jenny.
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I really, really appreciate your kind words.
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But on that note,
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we're here to talk about some juicy nutrition stuff.
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I want to help you guys see amazing progress.
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So even if you aren't having any plans
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or intention to track your calories,
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let's talk about how to at least calculate them
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because if there's one thing I always say,
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knowledge is power.
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I lost 50 pounds that I gained my pregnancy.
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Not by tracking my calories,
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but by understanding my body's targets
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and understanding how to build a plate and build habits
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that support hitting these non-negotiable targets.
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Whether you track your food or not,
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it is still very important to understand
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a rough idea of your calories
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or at least even the concept
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because these are core things that are just required
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to be able to achieve our fitness goals.
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So when you're calculating your calories,
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there are really two ways to approach
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figuring out essentially how much you should be eating.
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Let's first talk about the scientific way.
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The scientific way of calculating your calories
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is going to involve using an estimation equation.
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This could be an episode of itself,
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but there are many estimation equations out there.
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To make it simple,
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I'm actually gonna share with you guys in the show notes
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if you've never used any of our free resources before.
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I actually have a free calorie calculator
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that uses the estimation equation
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that I personally love using for women,
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which is the population I mostly work with.
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And this estimation equation,
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there's no pen and paper like I had to do in school once.
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It really takes out the guess work.
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It's going to ask you the questions necessary
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to be able to give you an estimated value for your calories.
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How these estimation equations work
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is there are actually different estimation equations
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based upon different populations of people,
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literally people that have been studied
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where we extrapolate estimated energy needs,
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which is estimated calorie needs in the scientific world.
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The estimation equation for your calorie intake
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that you'll be using if you use mine
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is going to include questions
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and we'll ask you questions on inputting things like gender.
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So are you male or female?
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How tall are you, you're height, how much you weigh,
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and it will ask about your daily activity.
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This is known as an activity factor.
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The activity factor includes both voluntary exercise
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where you're actually going to the gym
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or maybe you're working out
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or you're doing something structured,
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but it also takes into consideration
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what I refer to as non-exercise activity,
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like activity of you not just like going to the gym,
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but like the rest of the day put it that way.
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That can be walking, that can be standing,
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that can be other ways in which you move your body
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that contributes to your total activity throughout the day,
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but it is an intentional structured exercise.
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Why that is important is this activity factor
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alongside all of the other data collected
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is used as a multiplier with something called BMR,
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your basal metabolic rate,
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which is essentially going to determine
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with your baseline stats and how much you exercise
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and how much you move your body.
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What is an estimated amount of calories
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it takes to maintain your weight?
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There have been always a few questions on this topic
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in our programs, especially women who are in any of our programs
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where you might be calculating your calories on your own.
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I actually want to share a really exciting update
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that if you use the free calorie calculator in my show notes,
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I actually have a little description
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that tells you based upon some specific scenarios,
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what activity factor I would suggest using,
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which I think really goes hand in hand
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with this podcast episode,
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but really choosing the right activity factor
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is really, really important.
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Let me put it this way.
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If you feel like you work out pretty hard
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and you're like, yeah, I work out like three, four days a week,
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it's like a really hard exercise kind of thing
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and you choose moderate exercise.
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But when we kind of dive into your workouts,
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we're like, you know, you're reading of perceived exertion,
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which is essentially how hard you think you're pushing yourself
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isn't very high.
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I actually would put someone despite the light exercise category
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being one to two times a week.
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If you're actually not exerting yourself very hard
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in your workouts, that would actually maybe
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cause me as your dietitian to honestly bump down your calories
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and bump down the activity factor I'm using
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because I don't think you're really exerting yourself
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as much as what the moderate quote unquote exercise
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activity factor would be.
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Another example is say you're working out maybe two,
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three days a week in that moderate category,
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but you are very, very sedentary outside of the gym.
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One strategy would be, we all let's bump up your steps
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and keep you at the moderate activity place,
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but maybe we're actually bumping your calories down a little bit.
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And so I will say in practice,
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setting calories as an art alongside a science,
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this is the scientific way to get a baseline estimation keyword
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as a estimation.
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These are not facts.
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You have to see how it kind of plays out
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and know there's many different scenarios,
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but I find this a really, really great way to at least begin
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to understand your body's nutritional needs
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because so many women get so shocked
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when they use these estimation equations
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because if you're anything like me, when we're younger,
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we're told 1200 calories and eating very low amounts of food
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is really how we get to our goals.
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When in reality, the science really demonstrates
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and also dictates that we can actually eat more and lose weight.
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And the goal is actually to eat the most amount of food
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and try to set our calories up right from the start,
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not the least amount of food when we're shaping our goals.
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Now this is an overview of obviously the scientific way
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to begin to calculate your calories
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and using this estimation equation,
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you're gonna calculate what it takes to maintain your weight.
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Then the goal from there would be to enter a slight deficit.
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You can do a range that I do with my clients,
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which is 300 to 500 below maintenance.
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So if it takes 2000 calories to maintain your weight,
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the goal would be okay, maybe 1,500 would be that range.
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And maybe you're more in the less active side,
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maybe we're like, okay, let's set your macros off of 1,500 or 1,600.
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Or whatever number maybe that feels a little low for you.
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So it's like, oh, let's do 1,700,
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but these are very fluid targets.
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You have to see how it goes and practice, see how you feel.
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And then that's where we're making adjustments from,
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but it's a really, really great place to start,
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especially understanding that your deficit
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is not one specific number.
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You know, you should be 400 calories below 500 calories,
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below 300 calories, below all of those are deficits.
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And depending on how you feel,
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we'll let's see how your body responds.
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Let's briefly also talk about the real life way,
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a really fun way to determine how much you should be eating
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for fat loss.
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This is one of my favorite things to talk about
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because when you really think about fat loss
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and changing your body,
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if you're maintaining your weight right now,
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you're eating at maintenance.
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And so when you really think about it that way,
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if you're not shutting weight right now,
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regardless of what my fitness pal or a calorie equation
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is telling you,
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the goal is to shift your eating habits, adjust your portions,
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and begin seeing fat loss come off your body
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because you're eating less calories.
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You're not just eating less.
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You're eating less calories, less energy.
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So I always say the real life way to figure out
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how much you should be eating is,
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well, first off, you could track it in a food app
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and try to see roughly, if I mean very, very honest,
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and that's really the key here,
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how many calories am I roughly eating a day?
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If I was to enter in a sample day of eating,
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I often say enter a good day,
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enter a quote unquote bad day,
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where maybe you're overeating and you're snacking
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and you're going out to eat
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to really get a just to maybe you're taking average of that.
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But another thing you can do is not even track your food.
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And what you can also do is to get a gist of how you eat now,
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and you know how you eat,
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you make those choices every day.
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What you could do is maybe even write out your food choices
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or in the moment kind of decide
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what are little tweaks and modifications
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that will save you calories.
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If you have calorie awareness and you understand
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what's in your food, if not,
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tracking is really great alongside me
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following a plan, like the meal plan, for instance,
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and the recipes we have in the fall challenge.
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But basically what you wanna do is find little ways
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that you can manipulate your portions,
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so you can cut back on calories
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and know that doesn't mean I'm saying cut out the carb
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and your meal, but a really classic example of this
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that I always say is sometimes when I'm cooking dinner,
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I'll slap on like a big serving of rice
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and honestly I don't even know the portion.
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And probably if you're eating this way,
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you probably don't know the portion either.
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So what I might do is, okay, maybe I'm getting
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out of measuring cup to kind of feel a little bit more precise
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around like I'm not just giving myself
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this heaping serving of rice,
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maybe I'm kind of being a little bit more intentional
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or honestly without even a portion size container
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like a measuring cup,
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maybe I'm kind of portioning less
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and the key thing here is see how you feel.
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A great example of this too is say you always go
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for like one cup of rice.
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I'm not saying rice is bad, carbs are great.
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But what would it look like to not have just one cup of rice,
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but maybe do three fourths or a half a cup of rice
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and then you're using another half a cup
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and bulking the meal up with cauliflower rice.
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If you did half a cup of regular rice
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and half a cup of cauliflower rice,
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the volume is the same as that initial one cup of rice,
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but you see how the calories now are manipulated
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because cauliflower rice is significantly going to be
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lower in calories per serving as compared to rice.
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This is a really fantastic example of swapping portions
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and also in addition to swapping portions,
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the real life way to kind of determine how much to eat
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is taking how you eat now
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and also finding little ways
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if you currently don't eat this way
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to add in more protein or more fiber
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and maybe even just looking at nutrition facts labels
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and kind of going for modifications
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to maybe swap this or swap that to save on calories.
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But ultimately there has to be something
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that we're omitting in some way shape or form
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because we do have to cut out calories,
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we do have to cut out that.
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For some people it's manipulating portions
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and it doesn't feel like you're limiting food.
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For other people for me it's limiting my food.
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I have to cut back on snacks
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or I have to not have as much portions on my plate
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but honestly what can be really surprising
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that I always say to clients
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and I see my real life is I never want to feel deprived
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when dieting but sometimes when I actually
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manipulate my portions and I like don't honestly serve,
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let's be blunt as much as I normally do.
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At first I'm like how am I going to feel?
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But then sometimes you can be really surprised
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that you actually feel great after the meal
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and you're like wow, I'm actually feeling pretty satisfied
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and I didn't need all that food that I really put there.
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That's the thing about dieting.
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I know it's a dirty word for so many people
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but that's the thing about dieting and weight loss.
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There has to be some tweaks and modifications.
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I mean that energy isn't going to get taken away
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out of nowhere.
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It's great to add in more protein and fiber
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but ultimately I'm not saying the point of this podcast episode
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is certainly not starve yourself,
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cut out things here and there
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but we do have to get honest about finding little tweaks
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and modifications and ways that we can cut back in a way
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and this is the key in a way that doesn't make you feel deprived.
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So whether it's the scientific way
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and you're using the estimation equation
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or you're kind of taking this more like real life approach
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where it's like okay this is how I eat now,
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what are some tweaks that I can add on week over week over week
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to try to cut back here and cut back there
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to cut back obviously on calorie sketch my goals.
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There's so many different ways and honestly hybrid ways
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where you do a little bit of both to achieve your goals
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but ultimately a calorie deficit is king
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and that's really the point of today's episode
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whether or not you track your food.
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It's so important to understand the concept of a calorie deficit
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and once you start to hit it consistently
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that is what's producing your body to be able to get rid of that fat
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because fat is stored energy.
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It's stored energy that for you to get rid of it
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you have to under consume the energy
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from your maintenance calories
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and then you're gonna happen to your fat stores
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and get rid of that fat.
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So there's some way Shabr for that fat has to go
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and that's through a calorie deficit
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but it doesn't have to be miserable,
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it doesn't have to be restrictive,
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it doesn't have to be intense
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and that's where you get to determine
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how you go about your goals in terms of how you go about dieting
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which is so powerful because it doesn't have to be a miserable process.
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Anyway, I'm gonna make a new rule for myself.
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I feel like I don't even need to tell you guys this
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but I'm gonna make these episodes a little bit longer
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because I feel like 10 minutes are just too short for me.
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It's too short with the information that I want to give you.
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So maybe my new goal is like 15 to 20 minutes for these episodes
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and now you're getting my behind the scenes.
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But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode.
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Thank you, Jenny, for your nice review.
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Thank you guys for listening to this.
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Another fun little episode, a big girl fall.
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We have so many episodes.
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By weekly two episodes coming out for the whole month of October
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all on fat loss and helping you guys achieve your goals.
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If you enjoyed today's episode, leave a rating and review
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and I will see you guys on Thursday.
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Hey, girlfriend.
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Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode.
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If you'd like to learn more about eating right for fat loss
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and never gaining weight back,
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I'll be continuing this party on Instagram
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where you can find me at sorority.nutritionist posting inspiration
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every single day.
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Also, if you're wondering where to get started on your journey,
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be sure to head to the sororitynutritionist.com
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Backslash quiz to take my free quiz
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that will tell you why you aren't losing weight
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and what you can begin to do about it
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so you can see progress faster.
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You can also find any other links and resources mentioned
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in the show at the sororitynutritionist.com
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under free resources.
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I hope you have such a beautiful day
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and I will see you next time, girlfriend.