It seems that most people are at a loss when it comes to knowing what to eat in order to lose weight and tone up. I get asked quite often "what and how much should I eat to start losing weight?" I want to take some time to talk about that topic.

First, I have to say that the current trend says that the numbers don't matter and you can eat however much you want without counting calories as long as you are eating the right foods. I do not agree with that. The numbers do matter and people seem to lose weight and keep it off consistently if they take time to track their daily intake until they are familiar enough with the foods they typically eat to instinctually know how much they can eat and continue to lose or maintain their weight. Is it fun? No. Is it time consuming? Yes. Does it aid in weight loss? Yes.

I believe that what and how much you eat play a part in your health, body weight and body fat percentage. Don't believe me? Take a look at this study done by a university professor that shows how he lost weight on a snack cake diet. Am I telling you to eat like he did to lose weight? NO!!! I'm just making the point that calories matter. But the nutritional value of the food also matters. Other studies show that high junk food (read high sugar, low nutrient, processed food) intake leads to many chronic diseases such as cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes.

So, in order to be healthy on the inside and the outside, we need to look at the amount that we eat and what we eat. Now let's dive into what that looks like. The following is part of an email that I sent to a client outlining my ideas:

The people that I have known to successfully lose weight and keep it off have had a mentality shift when it comes to food. They don't think of foods in terms of what they can or can't have, but rather, in terms of what will best fuel their body and help them stay healthy from the inside out. They don't diet. They change their eating habits forever. The biggest specific things that successful clients do is cut out added sugar and processed foods. That means eating whole foods, cooking almost every meal eaten, and not having much use for sugar, maple syrup, jelly, honey, agave, etc. even being in the house. They all typically eat very clean all week and then give themselves one meal a week where they splurge (eat out, have a glass or two of wine, eat dessert). The successful diets that I have seen first or second hand have been high in protein, moderate in carbohydrate and low to moderate in fat. They include lots of lean meat, vegetables and complex carbohydrates along with some fruits, nuts and other healthy fats. They are typically low in dairy other than cottage cheese and Greek yogurt.

The clients that I have seen lose and maintain their weight loss have been very strict with their new dietary plans and weight training workouts in the beginning and then have seen a major shift in their metabolism to where they actually need to start eating more calories again. Many of them actually have a hard time eating enough to keep up with their body's caloric needs at some point.

So what do I mean by high protein? I mean that about 20% of your total daily calories should come from protein. What about moderate carbohydrate and moderate fat? About 50% of your total calories should come from carbohydrate sources and 30% from fat. That means that if you are aiming for 1,600 calories a day, you would need to eat 80 grams of protein, 200 grams of carbs and 53 grams of fat. If you get a tracking app such as MyFitnessPal or LifeSum, it will make all of this so much more simple! If you need help figuring out how much you should eat to lose, maintain or even gain weight, you can easily look it up online, use a tracking app, or you can contact me and I can point you in the right direction. And if you really want more specifics, look out for my next few posts. I am going to go into more detail about healthy foods and diets. And I am also going to answer the next most popular question I get which is, "well, what do you eat?".