The Importance of Snacking

     When it comes to losing weight, its important to eat the right amounts of healthy foods each day. While this sounds self-evident, it's much easier said than done. Too many people go on diets which involve feeling hungry for most of the day, then feeling guilty when they give in to the overwhelming urge to eat. That’s a great way to undermine your chance of success. Instead, feed your body throughout the day to fend off cravings and improve your chance for success.

    As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m reading a really useful book called “Eat This, Not That”. The chapter on snacks and sweets discusses the need to snack wisely when losing weight – a point that’s worth emphasizing. 

    The diet plan for my current workout program (Focus T25) incorporates this idea, by having you eat five smaller meals throughout the day.  Essentially, you eat a smaller breakfast, lunch and dinner, leaving room for two snacks at mid-morning and mid-afternoon. By spreading your food consumption throughout the day, your body gets used to the idea that food will be forthcoming – and it will be less inclined to horde fat.

    For this reason, it’s extremely important to keep healthy snacks on hand, and to eat them in the right amounts so that you don’t blast through your calorie limits (I wrote about the Harris-Benedict equation to calculate proper calorie consumption in an earlier August 2013 post). Creating a healthy diet means finding a balance between eating the right kinds of food, and eating the right amounts of food. It takes some trial and error to find the right balance for you, so be patient with yourself as you continue to experiment.

    Some healthy foods I like to keep around the house include:

Almonds (small quantities – they’re really healthy but high in calories)
Greek yogurt
Cottage cheese
String cheese (1 piece)
Apple
Celery with peanut butter
Carrot sticks dipped in hummus
A bit of dark chocolate

    I also drink Shakeology for my mid-afternoon snack, which is a shake blend that I really like.  I keep my recipe under 250 calories, and it keeps me going until dinner. A smoothie or protein shake can be used for this purpose as well.

These are just some of my own personal preferences - there are plenty of other healthy options out there. The important thing is to have the healthy snacks that you like readily available at home (or at work), so that you can fend off those hunger pangs before they drive you to overeat the wrong foods.

Counting calories - Where to start?

I first want to say that I do not religiously count calories. I do not track every bite I take in myfitnesspal.com or any other calorie tracking program. However, over the past six months I've taken a much greater interest in the number of calories in my food, along with the amount of fat, carbs, proteins, vitamins and other content. While I refuse to obsess over the caloric content of every bit of food that crosses my lips, I think it's useful to know how many calories I should consume to maintain, and how many I should consume to lose. I'm currently trying to maintain my weight (over the summer), but come fall I want to lose the last 3-5 pounds, so I'll need to be more careful.

So, to figure out my baseline, I've used the Harris Benedict-Equation, which determines a target caloric intake based on your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). The Insanity program uses a calculator based on this. BMR is basically the number of calories your body needs to stay alive and healthy. Once the BMR is calculated, you add an "allowance" for physical activity to determine the number of calories you should consume to maintain your current weight. From this number, determine a healthy caloric deficit based on your weight loss goals (this will vary greatly from person to person; you may want to chat with your doctor to determine the right level for you).

As a rough estimate, healthy weight loss is approximately 1-2 pounds a week, requiring a caloric deficit of around 3,500 calories to lose one pound. So, a deficit of 500 calories a day is probably a reasonable target if you're trying to lose weight. Like I've said in the past, I'm entirely opposed to diets. For me, it's all about eating healthy food in the right amounts, and permanently changing your approach to food.

THE HARRIS-BENEDICT EQUATION:

1. Calculate your BMR:

        Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) - ( 4.7 x age in years )

        Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in years )

2. Multiply your BMR by the appropriate activity factor, as follows:

           Sedentary (little or no exercise): BMR x 1.2

           Lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week): BMR x 1.375

           Moderately active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week): BMR x 1.55

           Very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week): BMR x 1.725

           Extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training): BMR x 1.9

NOTE: For Insanity, most people choose to apply "Very Active" or "Extra Active". I think that for T25, "Moderately Active" is probably more accurate (though if you do other physical activity during the day, that will bump you to a higher category).

3. Your final number is the approximate number of calories you need each day to maintain your weight. For weight loss, determine the mild to moderate caloric deficit that is right for you.

So in my case:

Female, 148 pounds, 70 inches, age 42: 655 + (4.35 x 148) + (4.7 x 70) - (4.7 x 42)= 1429

Multiply 1429 x 1.55 (moderately active) = 2,215 calories a day to maintain my weight. With this information, I will probably aim for 1,900 over the summer, since I'm basically maintaining until fall (though dropping a pound or two wouldn't be unwelcome!)