Are you wondering how to kick start weight loss? When broken down, weight loss is simple but often over complicated. The fundamental law to remember is the following:
You must burn more calories than you consume (eat).
What Are Calories?
Calories are units of energy that we get from the foods and drink that we consume. When you burn more calories than you consume, this brings you into what’s called a calorie deficit.
The calories that we burn through each day are built up of 3 separate components:
- Resting Energy Expenditure (REE) – When your body is at rest, REE are the calories that you burn when you are at rest. This energy is used to keep you alive, performing functions such as breathing and blood circulation.
- Thermic Effect of Food – This is the calories that your body uses when it carries out the process of digesting and absorbing, as well las metabolising food
- Activity energy expenditure – This is the calories that you burn during exercise, and movement – Even just fidgeting can cause you to burn calories!
What Is A Calorie Deficit?
If you are providing your body with fewer calories than it needs for the above 3 components, then that means you are putting your body into a calorie deficit. Doing this consistently can cause you to begin weight loss.
The bigger the calorie deficit the quicker the weight loss. It is recommended you calculate the calories you need to lose weight. From there, tracking your calories is the easiest way to truly know how much food is going into your body. There are many apps
Once you’ve found how many calories you need to lose weight the rest is simple. DON’T EAT MORE!
Calculating your calories
The calories that our body needs differs from person to person and can be affected by a wide range of environmental and physical factors.
It is wise to figure out how much maintenance calories you need for your body to support its energy expenditure. We would recommend using a calculator that takes into account your weight, sex, age height and the levels of physical activity that you undertake.
To ensure a healthy weight loss and adequate nutrient intake, women should not consume fewer than 1,200 calories per day whilst men should not consume fewer than 1500.
How Can I Burn More Calories to kick start weight loss?
Now there are a few simple things we can do throughout the day to help speed up the process of weight loss i.e. burning more calories. One often simple but overlooked thing is what we call ‘NEAT’ (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis). NEAT is all the non-voluntary sports like exercise we do each and every day from: walking to the car, making hand gestures when we talk, vacuuming the house, gardening and even fidgeting.
To your surprise the average person will typically burn more calories through Daily NEAT than they will in their actual gym workout. So how can we push the boundaries even more and burn those extra calories through NEAT? Here are a few of easy ways we can do so:
- Walk or cycle to work
- Use stairs not lifts
- Standing more frequently whether it’s at work or in general.
- 10,000 steps a day
Anything you do that gets you moving around more will help increase your daily energy expenditure or put simply, burn more calories through NEAT.
