Let's Do This!

Many of us who really struggle with weight issues have a tendency to get stuck in that helpless spot where we desire change yet don’t know how to make it happen. Whether you need to lose 10lbs or 100lbs it’s really helpful to have your goals established and lots of motivation along the way to stay on track.

You need a goal and a plan. Have you figured out the approximate healthy weight for your height yet? That’s a great place to start. If you don’t have hydrostatic body fat testing available to you, you can always get an idea of your healthy weight on the internet. It’s not an absolute goal, but shooting for the high-side of the “Healthy” BMI is a great place to start if you are in currently in the obese category. You can dial things in even further once you reach this “Healthy-range” goal if needed. Here is a link to a helpful Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator online: http://www.caloriescount.com/Mod_my_plan_assessment.aspx. There’s a lot of mixed feeling about the accuracy of using BMI measurements because they don’t take into account really muscular folks like myself. For the longest time, I thought I was shooting for a weight that I know now is completely unrealistic and unreasonable for my body. Hydrostatic testing revealed to me that I had so much more muscle than the average person my height; I would be dead if I tried to reach that magic number I thought I needed to weigh. I have 23lbs more lean body-mass than the average woman my height, imagine how happy I was to hear that! I don’t have to weigh as little as I thought to still get the athletic look I’m going for. So, don’t just pick some magic number out that you think you need to weigh, be flexible with yourself. Be healthy and reasonable with your goals. Just because you weighed a certain number in high school doesn’t mean it’s necessarily healthy for you now, especially if you are taller, building muscle or have had other major life changes. Remember your ultimate goal should be your health and longevity, so be good to yourself by setting a realistic goal. 

Have you figured out how many calories your body uses a day yet? That is SO critical in your plan to achieve healthy body composition. You can exercise for hours a day and get nowhere if you are fueling your body improperly. This is why so many of us get frustrated and give up when we don't see the results we think we should: we just don't have our calories under control yet. In addition to the fantastic calorie counting website/app My Fitness Pal that I love and have shared with you previously, I want to share another site I’ve used for motivation along the way. The Healthy Weight Forum website has a really neat tool that allows for you to input your current weight, height, activity level, desired weight loss and time frame you’d like to lose the weight in. Once you’ve entered your details, it calculates your results and lets you print out your weekly calorie target numbers in order to reach your goal. You’ll have to play around with it a little to find the calories or time frame that work best for you but it’s so nice to map your potential goal out and see how many weeks that you’ll reach that goal. Make sure you don’t drop those calories too much, a good rule of thumb is to stay above 1200 for ladies and 1500 for guys, especially if you will be reducing your calories for a long period of time. We want to keep your metabolism burning hot and fueling your body properly along with exercise is the best way to do that.



Remember the key to weight loss is: Calories in, calories out. Your body uses a certain amount of calories to function. If you take in more calories than your body uses, you gain weight. If you eat less calories than your body uses, you lose weight. It’s as simple as that. We can do this! :)