Simple Basis: To lose weight, the energy intake through food you eat should be lower than the energy you burn through various physical activities.
Recently, while consulting a few of the new clients, one of the issues that was repeatedly coming forth was, ” inspite of maintaining portion size, eating healthy, why are we not losing weight?”
They were working out 45 mins of high intensity workout daily but still no results.
If you are one of them, read on:
Fact: The actual reason we eat is to provide nutrition to the body and for the energy to carry out various processes in the body like breathing, digesting, movement to name a few. The more your physical activity or exertion, the more nutritious and higher calorie food you need.
However, this is what is happening with these new clients:
- The intake remains the same. And they force themselves to increase their workout times to match up the intake instead of modifying their intake on the basis of the physical movement during lockdown.
- Their minds are conditioned to have a certain portion size, so instead of listening to the body they eat the portion sizes they have always been having.
A lot of individuals equate reduced intake with reduced calories and that is exactly where you might be going wrong.
Quality of Food over Quantity of Food. While we might successfully reduce the intake, it is imperative that there is an increase in the incorporation of nutritious ingredients.
You can adopt the following tips to work on the quality:
- Use small power punches: a date, flaxseeds, mangoes, sprouts, green leafy veg, veg juice shot, kahawa. Include 2-3 ingredients in a day that are absolutely nutritious packed
- Use unusual ingredients: Use spices, ingredients that are local, available yet you do not land up using them on a regular basis for eg.
- Tweak the intake: Instead of deciding how much time to workout, decide on how much to eat to equate the activity and the food intake.