The Simplicity of Wellness Podcast
The Simplicity of Wellness podcast is about learning how to bring your body into balance so that you get leaner, stronger and healthier as you age. Each week I'll share thoughts and ideas that help my clients build the self-awareness, self-confidence and self-reliance to lose weight, shed inches, manage muscle mass and master their mind so that they can stop dieting and enjoy living at their healthy weight with optimal wellness.
The Simplicity of Wellness Podcast
Cracking the Calorie Code: Energy Management for Permanent Weight Loss
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Ever wondered why some people seem to lose weight effortlessly while others struggle to drop even a single pound? We're peeling back the layers on the calorie conundrum, giving you the lowdown on how these energy units affect your weight loss journey. Dive into the fascinating world of Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), Thermic Effect of Food (TEF), and the stealthy calorie-burner, Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT). We're not just talking about hitting the gym; learn how every little movement counts in your quest to shed those unwanted pounds. Plus, we'll explore why your waistline might expand as you age and what roles muscle mass and daily activity play in this maddening trend.
Say goodbye to fleeting fad diets and hello to a lasting transformation with our Hangry to Healthy Weight Loss coaching program. Discover how balancing your body and tweaking your metabolism is the secret sauce to feeling energetic and keeping digestive woes at bay. Whether you're a fasting fanatic or a macro-tracking master, we'll show you how to craft a personalized weight loss formula that sticks. We're also rolling out the red carpet for our listeners eager to join us this April; let's embark on this healthful journey together, armed with starter food lists and fat-burning insights, all designed to help you achieve that effortlessly balanced body you've been dreaming of.
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Welcome to the Simplicity of Wellness podcast. I'm your host, board-certified holistic nutritionist and professional life coach, amy White. The purpose of this podcast is to share information that you can use to become leaner, stronger and healthier by losing weight, shedding inches, maintaining muscle and managing your mind, all while living your normal busy life in this modern, sugar-filled world. Hello simplifiers, today I want to talk about calories. I think this is something that maybe perplexes a lot of people, including me. I recently was listening to some very cool information. It was a couple of hours, but I was able to take some things away from that conversation that I thought might be helpful for you. I found it interesting, so I was hoping that you will also find it interesting. I want to talk about calories, I want to talk about food and I want to talk about how it all relates to weight loss. The first thing I want to talk about is this concept of calories in and calories out. Calories in is really easy that is what we eat. It is the food that we eat. Calories out is a little bit more nuanced, so I'm going to spend more time on that. Before I jump in, let me give you a definition of what a calorie is. This is a definition from Lane Norton and I just really liked it. He said a calorie is the potential energy contained in the chemical bonds of food that through the process of digestion, absorption and metabolism, that energy is captured. The reason that I wanted to give you that definition is because we're going to talk about captured energy when we get into the nuances of calories out. When it comes to calories out, you can think of that in three buckets, one bucket being BMR, which is your basal metabolic rate. The next is TEF, thermic Effect of Food, and the final is physical activity. I'm going to go through each bucket BMR, your basal metabolic rate. You're going to burn 50 to 70% of your daily calories just due to BMR. What's the basal metabolic rate as the cost of being alive? I mentioned there's a range between 50 and 70% of the calories that you burn in a day are going to just be basically to keep you alive. The discrepancy between 50 and 70% is going to vary from person to person, because somebody who carries more muscle mass will burn closer to that 70% of calories versus somebody who doesn't carry a lot of muscle mass. Let's move over to TEF, which is Thermic Effect of Food, and I think you're going to find this very interesting.
Speaker 1:When it comes to the food that we eat, we don't just get energy from that food. Your body actually has to produce energy in order to process the food. Depending on the type of food, your body is going to use more or less energy. When it comes to protein, protein requires more energy from the body to process the calories coming in from that protein. We're going to process about 70 to 80% of the calories. Meaning, if you eat 100 calories of protein, you're going to get to keep about 70 to 80 of those calories. That's it. You don't keep 100% of the calories. You keep about 70 to 80% of the calories. When it comes to carbohydrates, if you eat 100 calories of carbs, you are actually going to get to keep about 90 to 95% of those calories. When it comes to fats, they are the least expensive in terms of energy. You actually get to keep most of the calories that you get from fats. I think it's about 0 to 3% is what the body is going to take away and use.
Speaker 1:I don't want you to overthink this at all. I just wanted to give you that snapshot that not all food is created equal. While calories are created equal. Food is not created equal. Now we're going to move to the third bucket, which is the one that most everybody thinks about when it comes to this calories out idea. That is, physical activity. We think of physical activity as exercise, but this bucket is actually nuanced. There's two parts to this bucket. One is physical activity, or exercise as we know it, that land movement. I'm going to burn calories, I'm going to lose weight, I'm going to get fit, whatever it is, that's exercise. But the other piece of this physical activity bucket is something called NEAT, it's non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
Speaker 1:I think NEAT is so interesting because it's unconscious movement that we make every day, things that we do that you don't think about. You're not actively making these movements for any reason other than these. Are just things that you do. For example, I'm sitting here and I'm moving my hands. I'm talking with my hands. That is a NEAT activity. I'm also rolling my foot, bouncing your leg. You often see kids who can't really sit still and they're bouncing their leg. That's a NEAT activity. Rubbing your face you never put your hands on your face and rub your face that's a NEAT activity. Maybe you're pacing and you don't even realize You're just somebody who paces. That's a NEAT activity.
Speaker 1:Any activity that you do unconsciously falls into this non-exercise activity thermogenesis. As soon as you actively become aware of an activity, it goes into the exercise bucket. For example, if you're somebody who has decided they want to up their non-exercise activity by taking the stairs instead of the elevator, you haven't. You've just included more exercise because you consciously made this decision. I'm going to take the stairs instead of the elevator. That's not NEAT. So NEAT is really all of these little movements that we do and make all day. That just happen. They're nothing that you think about, it's just what happens. That's the NEAT, the non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, one of the things that's so interesting about this is, as we get older, you often think or maybe you've thought or have heard from other people that oh my gosh, I'm actually putting on weight. I'm doing nothing differently, but I'm actually gaining weight. Or it's so hard to lose weight. It never used to be hard for me to lose weight. As we get older, our non-exercise activity diminishes A lot of the movement that we did unconsciously when we were younger. We don't do as much. We're more sedentary, so this actually decreases and it makes a difference when it comes to weight loss.
Speaker 1:Weight loss is the result of a calorie deficit, meaning you are burning more calories than you're taking in. Ultimately, if you want to lose weight, that is what it's going to come down to. So how do you create a calorie deficit? You have to manage the incoming calories. So you have to manage your food. There are three ways to manage your food Dietary restriction, time restriction and calorie restriction.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk about each of those things. Dietary restriction means you're going to restrict a food group or a type of food. An example of this would be going on a low carb diet or a low fat diet, or a plant based, vegetarian or vegan diet, carnivore diet, a paleo diet, a sugar-free diet. Do you see what I mean? You're taking out a food group or you're restricting some type of food. That's what dietary restriction means.
Speaker 1:The second bucket that I mentioned was time restriction, so this is going to be that concept of fasting. This can look different for everyone. Some people would want to fast in a time-restricted eating window, meaning I eat from 11 am to 7 pm. Other people are like I only eat on Tuesdays, thursdays, saturdays and Sundays, and I don't eat anything on Mondays, wednesdays and Fridays. For me, for example, I don't feel like I do any formal fasting, but what I do is I stop eating after dinner and then I don't eat again until I get hungry in the morning. I do actually tend to have a fasted window of about 16 hours overnight.
Speaker 1:Then the third one is calorie restriction. This is going to be counting and managing your incoming calories, tracking calories, and you're creating a ceiling. This is my number. I can eat whatever I want up to this number, but never going above that number. This also can get nuanced down into macro counting, tracking your proteins, your carbs and your fats, and having specific ceilings or whatever, for each of those components.
Speaker 1:The thing that's interesting about this is there is no best way for everyone, but there is a best way for you. That's going to be whichever way feels easy to you. There are going to be people out there who are just going crazy about a low carb or ketogenic diet and how it's the best thing ever. They could eat all this food and lose all of this weight. When there's somebody else who maybe tried a keto diet and they were just like, this did not work for me. I didn't feel well. I actually gained weight for each of these ways that you can manage your food. Certain things are going to feel really easy for you, and then other things are going to feel like a big no, definitely not doing that. The trick is figuring out which one works for you.
Speaker 1:When it comes to food restriction, there are definitely people who will feel very deprived and will ultimately have a binge response to this. They will restrict that thing that they told themselves they weren't going to eat for, however long they can manage it, and then they're going to break down and eat as much of it as they can. For others, food restriction is liberating. It gives them very clear and easy guidelines to follow, and so it makes it so simple. The mind drama is gone. It's very black and white. They no longer have an internal negotiation going on in their head about well, if I only eat a little bit of this, that would be okay. Then I wouldn't eat that. When there's food restriction and they know I eat these things and I don't eat those things, it can be very easy for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:When it comes to calorie counting, this can be very freeing again. For a lot of people. There's this food freedom you can eat whatever you want, and so that makes people feel comfortable. It makes them feel like they don't necessarily have a restriction. They have a limit and there's some structure, but they can also be spontaneous because they can eat whatever they want within that limit. With calorie restriction comes tracking. For a lot of people that can feel way too hard keeping track of all of their food. Counting, doing the numbers. That can be very overwhelming, which makes this a very difficult option for many people. When it comes to food timing, again, this is going to give a lot of clear structure without restriction, and a lot of people really like that. I can eat whatever I want, but within this timeframe. For other people, food timing is going to create anxiety. There's going to be potential hunger anxiety and that's going to be very difficult. They will not be able to focus because they will be so concerned about being hungry and not being able to eat. Those are just a few examples. There's so many different pros and cons to each one of these. The most important thing is finding the one that works for you, because consistency is what is going to create results. When you find the thing that feels easy to you, you can be consistent most of the time, and then that is how you see results.
Speaker 1:You'll often hear people claim I'm eating way more than I ever used to eat and I'm losing so much weight. There's no way. The calorie deficit thing is a total fallacy. But in fact, what's likely happening is these people are eating better and different food, food that's more nutrient dense, so it feels more satisfying. So they're actually eating less calorically dense food, but more nutrient dense food. So they could very well be eating greater quantities in terms of weight of food and possibly visual volume if they're eating some big salads and things like that, but less overall calories. And as you've heard me if you've listened to my other podcast you probably heard me say when you feed the cells in your body, you naturally eat less because the cells need those nutrients and when they get the nutrients, they're going to ask your body to turn down your appetite. So you will feel less hungry and more satisfied with less food, but better food. The idea is not to eat less, it's to eat better so that you feel like you actually are eating more when in reality, you've created a calorie deficit. However, you can create that calorie deficit, so it feels easy. That's what you're going for, the way I like to approach a calorie deficit and weight loss with my clients is to give them the opportunity to try all of these different modalities.
Speaker 1:The very first thing that I do with clients is bring the body into balance. We're going to balance out those metabolic hormones. We start there so that energy goes up, gut issues calm down, you basically feel so much better and so much more in control in your body. From there we get into the nuances of how do you actually want to lose the weight? What's going to actually feel the best to you? So again we get into the different modalities.
Speaker 1:I personally like to combine modalities, but that doesn't work for everybody. Maybe there's a little combining, but most people generally fall into one of the buckets. One modality is their primary modality. Personally, I do eat a very low sugar or low carbohydrate diet. I eat a ton of vegetables, but I don't eat a lot of processed carbohydrates, so I would consider myself pretty low carb as my primary modality. Secondary, which is fairly new for me, is tracking my calories. I just started doing that at the beginning of 2024 and it's been very fun and very interesting to do that consistently. I'm actually enjoying it a lot.
Speaker 1:All of my clients are different in how they approach permanent weight loss. They bring their body into balance and then it's really interesting to watch where they sort of settle in what feels really easy and natural to them. I have one client who just she loves fasting. That is her thing, she loves it. It's working for her, it's fantastic. I have other clients who absolutely love counting calories and counting macros, love it, it's fun for them, it makes it easy. Right, game of buying anything makes it easy. I have other clients who really like the food restriction. They really like the parameters of a low carb, low sugar diet. That works for them. Everybody's a little bit different. What's gonna work for you? That's something to figure out. That's the fun part. Let's figure out what works for you and then let's make it part of your normal lifestyle. That is the ultimate goal. You want to be able to live your life in a normal way that feels very easy and natural to you. But everything that you're doing, the behaviors of your normal life, are supporting what it is you want the body, the health, the energy. That's how you create permanent weight loss. You create a lifestyle where you're just doing all of the normal things, but everything you do supports you at your ideal healthy weight, feeling the best you've ever felt.
Speaker 1:Keep in mind that everything that I've just discussed regarding calorie deficit and the different modalities to create a calorie deficit that allows you to lose weight is part of a long-term process. Think of it as the beginning of the maintenance process. It doesn't mean that you're going to be micromanaging your food and life forever. Right now, you're in a phase where you're actually trying to create this outcome. You're trying to lose that excess weight and then, once you get to that place where you're feeling your best and you're liking how you look and how you're moving, you're basically at your new normal. Now you're in maintenance. The process of getting to that place allowed you to learn so much about your body and your thoughts, about your food and how you live your life that you now understand what works and doesn't work for you. You've developed new habits and created an entirely new lifestyle that will support your new normal. That was a lot today.
Speaker 1:We talked about calories calories coming into the body, and then we talked about calories going out of the body, how we burn calories Just our general lights on with our body metabolic rate burning most of our calories 50 to 70 percent of our calories and then our TEF, the thermic effect of food, so how much energy we use to actually burn the different types of food that we eat. And then, of course, physical activity, which includes regular exercise, but also neat N-E-A-T Non-exercise activity thermogenesis. We then went into creating a calorie deficit or managing your food for weight loss. Understand, exercise is fantastic. You should definitely be exercising, at the very least be moving. That, along with managing your food, is very synergistic when it comes to changing the shape of your body, your body composition and losing weight.
Speaker 1:However, if you are at a place where you're exhausted because your metabolic hormones are out of balance and you just don't have a lot of energy, I don't want you to get hung up on just exercising and thinking. Exercise is the key to weight loss. You have to focus on your food. Exercise is the extra piece when it comes to weight loss. When it comes to general overall health, yes, movement is important. You should move every day. When it comes to weight loss, focus on your food and your energy will increase, and then the exercise will just become part of your new lifestyle, because it will be fun for you.
Speaker 1:If weight loss is a goal and you really do want to feel better in your body. I want that for you. My Hangry to Healthy Weight Loss coaching program is open for enrollment in April. If you want help bringing your body into balance and then figuring out how to manage your weight loss or calorie deficit so that it feels easy for you, I can help you. Follow the link below in the show notes to the Hangry to Healthy page. You can read more about my weight loss coaching program and join while enrollment is open this month, in April.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening. I appreciate your support and I will see you in the next episode. Have you ever said to yourself I wish someone would just tell me what to eat? If so, today is your day. Go to the show notes and click the link your Healthy Kitchen what to eat to download the starter food list that I share with all of my Hangry to Healthy Weight Loss clients. These are the foods that will calm your gut, eliminate the bloat, boost your energy and shift you into a fat burner. This list is your first step toward body balance and weight loss. For the last time.
