Your food choices will have the biggest impact on whether or not you will lose weight. In general, we know that daily caloric intake should be our weight multiply by 10. Then you throw in some multipliers such as your activity level and your age, and voila! You arrive at your “magic number” on how many calories you need to eat in order to lose weight. You can either eat less or burn more by exercise to reach the “magic number” for weight loss. And it could be as simple as not eating 300 calories a day.
As a teen, I was lazy. So I would always choose to eat less. As a slightly overweight adult, I would always choose to eat more (and think that it is okay since I am exercising). I probably had it right as a teen.
What do 200 calories look like?
If you are within 10-15 pounds of your highest acceptable weight, eating 200 calories less a day would cause us to start shedding weight at a healthy rate. If you yo-yoed with your weight previous, you know that losing 5-10 pounds a week means you will gain it all back once you stop. You want to lose weight permanently and never to re-gain it. Slow and steady like the tortoise will win this race.
So what does 200 calories look like? It is a lot smaller than you think.
| Half of a store brought muffin
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| 4 lollipops
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| 4 kisses
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| Half of a Jack in the Box chicken sandwich
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For more pictures of what 200 calories look like, you should check out Wise Geek. Even without exercise, if you do not eat an extra 200 calories a day, you will lose 1 pound every 18 days at a 200 calorie daily deficit.
What do 300 calories snacks look like?
What if you do not eat 300 calories a day? It just means cutting out a handful of gummy bears or a few slices of bread. Here is what 300 calories snacks look like:
| 17 gummy bears
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| 4 slices of white bread
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| About 2 oz of potato chips
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| 1.5 Snickers bar
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I don’t know about you, but I can eat 17 gummy bears in one sitting without even thinking anything about it.
Even without exercise, if you do not eat an extra 300 calories a day, you will lose 1 pound every 12 days at a 300 calorie daily deficit. For more pictures of what 300 calories look like, you should check out Health Assist. If you are interested in finding ways to substitute 300 calories snacks with healthier options, you might want to consider reading Eat This, Not That!.
If your current diet consists mostly of the items in these pictures, you might want to try eating some vegetables or fruits as replacement or substitute with some healthier options from Eat This, Not That!. If you look at the other pictures from the sources I linked, you will see that you need to eat A LOT of vegetables or fruits in order to reach 200 or 300 calories. Here’s an idea: why not replace some of the food you eat with 200 calories worth of vegetables or fruit each day?
Trying to cut out more than 300 calories a day is difficult because your body go into starvation mode and try to become more efficient by burning less calories (the opposite of what you want to happen if you are serious about losing weight). You are better off trying to create a calorie deficit with exercise beyond 300 calories a day.
How much exercise do you need? A good start would be to match the calories you burn with the calories you are not eating. 200 calories is about 30-40 minutes of walking at a moderate pace (meaning you can still talk, but slightly breathless). 300 calories a day is about 40-50 minutes of walking at a moderate pace. Do not have a huge block of time to walk? Break it up.
Until next time and thanks for stopping by Small Steps to Health.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello.
Interesting site. I too like to check out calories in the food packaging and calculate how much i have to burn it off in the gym.
Kutucats last blog post..Panadol for Headache
Ummm …. er ….. thanks for the mention although not sure it is a positive mention, as it looks like I am a terrible person who other people must not follow at all (!!!)
goodbyetoallfats last blog post..When I was veggie ….
Kutucat- Oh, I do the same thing all time. I figure that if I have a “treat” such as a candy bar, I can “burn it off” in 49 minutes. So I workout for 40 minutes in order to have that candy bar. When I was younger, that did not seem to be a problem, but I find that lately, it just does not seem to be worth the effort. I rather just not have that candy bar. I feel that I am starting eat more mindfully. Thanks for commenting Kutucat
Sharon – I was trying to find a way to reference you in my blog since you sent some traffic to my blog. Sorry if it came out as too negative, but I find that you were trying to “cheat” too amusing. Seriously, I think most people, including myself, sometimes learn something in order to figure out how to cheat when it comes to eating. I thought it would be something people struggling with their weight can relate to.
Thanks for commenting.
Thanks for sharing this! I’ll feature this on my blog soon and link it back to you.. can I do that?
Thanks!
Sure, I always welcome links back to my blog. Thanks for commenting pika.
Great post Asithi. Another great tip is to avoid the liquid calories – in particular carbonated drinks. One can of soda comes in at around 150 calories.
Tom, I am glad that you pointed this out. I called empty calorie drinks the silent deal breaker. Everyone I know have a beverage or two (maybe even three) throughout the day.
They pour out a glass of juice, usually more than 8 oz serving for breakfast = 120-180 calories. Or they might have coffee with cream and sugar. For lunch, they have a can of soda = 150 calories. For dinner, a beer or some wine = 150-180 calories. That is 420-510 calories extra a day. Of course, we are going to gain weight!