Often times when people decide to make the decision to become more fit or healthier they have very minimal knowledge on how to, and are generally ill informed.   This is because we are surrounded with commercials of crash diets and many supplement companies who are out on the market providing false information and claims. Many are not only false but are extraordinary unrealistic. This not only sets high expectations for rapid weight loss but promotes doing it unhealthily, resulting in unwanted weight gain at the end.

Trying to lose weight or become healthier can be hard enough, but it may also feel like an ongoing battle with yourself if you do not know what you are doing. We have all experienced it at one point in our lives. Knowing how to do it not only the right way, but the healthiest way can make all the difference in keeping long lasting results you are proud of.

What Are Calories?

Calories are what drives humans, it’s how we get our energy. That is exactly what a calories is, energy. When you have too much “energy” and you are not using it effectively the body begins to store it as fat so it can be converted to energy later on. Just about everything we eat and drink has calories, and this is why you will normally see people who don’t eat a lot are underweight and people who eat in excess are overweight. One group doesn’t have enough energy and their bodies are burning fat for energy and the other group has an excess of energy and their bodies are storing it for later. This is the normal process of how things go with our body, it’s a highly specialized machine that always looks out for number one, that is why we need to know how to maintain it properly.

Without knowing what it needs, how can you feed it properly? When is the last time you really knew what you were eating and how it was going to affect your body later? If you’re reading this book chances are your answer is never, but that is all right. We need to understand what kind of calories it needs and why our bodies need a certain number of calories per day. Once we begin to understand its simple needs we can begin to change it and mold it how we please.

So how many calories do I need? The answer is simple, everyone is different. It’s not a hard answer to figure out for an individual, but telling a group how many they need accurately that is impossible. The reason this is impossible is that our everyday activities, lifestyle, and even our genetics make us all unique. This means each of us will require a different number of calories per day just to survive. Don’t worry that doesn’t mean you cannot easily find a guideline for how many you need and later on I will show you how to find that. For now, you just need to understand what calories are, and why they are important. You will also want to know that if we want to change our bodies weight that it’s possible once we find out how many calories we need to survive and maintain our weight, we can increase them, or decrease them to gain or lose weight, respectively.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are our bodies main source of energy. Carbohydrates are turned into energy in our bodies and then used or stored in our bodies for fuel later. If we are in a large caloric surplus this may result in them being stored as fat. You must remember, carbohydrates are a way for our body to get energy and they help with the production of building muscles, they are IMPORTANT! One more note on carbohydrates, they also carry water weight.

This is important because when you are first dieting and your carbohydrates are a little lower than normal you will notice a fast loss of weight. This can be mostly water and is nothing to be concerned about nor is it a reason to do a crash diet. Think about a car and how it needs gas to go. If the car runs out of gas, it runs out of energy, but you would not deliberately short it of gas to make it lighter. Carbohydrates are your gas, you don’t want to run out of them or you will start to slow down and feel weak.

Protein

Proteins are needed by our bodies to produce muscle, and some would say they are the most important macronutrient our bodies need (some will argue, but more on that in a minute). Proteins can carry amino acids which are important for muscular development and growth. Since muscles are made primarily out of protein it makes sense that when we diet or put our body in a deficit of calories we need to make sure we have enough or an abundance of protein to help preserve our muscles by making sure they have sufficient nutrients. While being in a caloric surplus or “bulking”

Even trying to gain lean mass we can normally worry a little about making sure we have an abundance of protein. This doesn’t mean we should have less than we need, we still want to make sure that our bodies are supplied a surplus so that there is enough for growth and not so much we cause ourselves to gain fat. Didn’t I just say that carbs are our bodies main source energy and can be stored as fat? I did and you read that right, so can any other macronutrient.

One of the popular diets out right now calls for eating no carbs and eating too much protein and fats, have you ever seen someone gain weight doing those diets? Your answer may be no, they seem to work. If that is the case then look at the after-effects of the diet. That diet may have people lose weight, but you can still gain fat from eating too much protein since proteins have calories. Now that you understand what proteins are, is it so hard to imagine why they are needed? Imagine this, you have to eat to stay alive right? If you cease to eat, you cease to exist, you dwindle away. You are made up of muscles, muscles are primary protein, they “eat” protein or amino acids. You don’t want to cease to exist, to starve and lose your weight. Neither do your muscles, they need “food” to grow, to maintain and to be healthy, don’t starve them.

So now that you know what to include in your diet, it’s time to toss the junk food to the side and start living a healthier life! Surely, you know what “junk” food is, right?