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calories

How many calories should I eat to lose weight?

June 20, 2019 by HeatherRobertson

How many calories should I eat to lose weight? 

I get this question often because people will run an online calculator, or take numbers from a personal trainer, or get an InBody scan, a body-fat test, or a Dexa scan and walk away with a slip of paper showing their target calories.

You believe these numbers are accurate, but what you notice, time and time again, is that the numbers don’t match up.

How can you get different numbers from different sources?

The answer is simple:

At best, these are all estimations. Your body is constantly changing—what calories you need today and what calories you’ll be burning next week might be two distinctly different amounts.

Many factors play into your metabolism and your calorie needs, such as your activity level, the foods you select, if you’re sick or healthy. And, if you’re female, your time of the month is a factor.

Since our bodies are so adaptive and changing, locking down one number that is 100% accurate all the time is a wild goose chase. It  starts to feel overwhelming and confusing, and you might want to throw up your hands in frustration and scream, “I don’t know. I give up!”

But what if we take that reaction off the table? Instead, you realize that an estimate is the first step to figuring this out—you are just going to have to put in a little bit of work.

Over the course of a few weeks, your body will give you the feedback you need to determine if those numbers you were given are correct. The numbers generated by scans and calculators are a great launchpad for finding your accurate calories numbers, but there’s another step you must do to make sure you’re on the right track.

You need to create a simple bio-feedback loop.

It looks like this:

Eat a certain calorie allotment (based on what you were given), and then monitor your weight change over time.

This will help you nail down the correct numbers you need to lose weight. And when you understand this process correctly, you can change your numbers as your body and life changes.

I have created a tool to help you with this entire process. It’s called the Master Your Calories teaching toolkit. It walks you through creating the bio-feedback loop, how many weeks to spend on each part of the process, and how to assess your changes over time so you can be in the control.

There really is no need to throw up your hands in frustration. Once you know your maintenance and weight-loss calories, you can be in charge of changing them as necessary.

Once you understand and implement the bio-feedback loop you’ll never again need to turn to generic calculators and online recommendations to determine your calorie needs. You will know your calorie numbers, and, as your body and life situation changes, you will begin to know how to alter your calories, test your new limits, and see if what you’re doing is actually working for you.

For more help, please check out my Master Your Calories teaching toolkit

Filed Under: Blog, Weight Loss Tips Tagged With: calories

311 – Half Size Me Community Weekly Webinar 311

December 12, 2018 by HSM Team

HSMC Weekly Webinars: (Protected Content)

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Click here to download the webinar recording for Webinar #311

Topics covered:

Info about 2020 HSM cruise

How to begin bringing exercise in when you are in a new area that does not provide the exercise you are used to

How to deal with consistent sickness and how to plan accordingly for that sickness

How to begin to look at your calories on a weekly average vs. a daily account

Breastfeeding, recovering after having a baby, planning for postpartum so that you don’t burn yourself out.

Resources:
https://www.livestrong.com/article/152802-calorie-intake-to-lose-weight-while-breastfeeding/
https://www.livestrong.com/article/336835-why-do-caloric-counts-change-when-cooked/
https://forums.halfsizeme.com/c/hsm-courses
https://forums.halfsizeme.com/t/stop-grazing-protocol-6-steps-video-series/3440?u=heatherrobertson1

Filed Under: HSMC Premium Weekly Webinar Tagged With: 2020 HSM Cruise, breastfeeding, calories, new surroundings, postpartum, sickness, stop grazing protocol

309 – Half Size Me Community Weekly Webinar 309

November 28, 2018 by HSM Team

HSMC Weekly Webinars: (Protected Content)

 

Half Size Me Community Members-Only Webinar Banner

 

 

Click here to download the webinar recording for Webinar #309

 

Topics covered:

Not allowing your desire to lose weight to remove relationships and social situations

We don’t have to go all or nothing with exercise if it’s impacting our eating or weight

How to enjoy eating out and being consistent with tracking even when we don’t know the calories of the foods we are tracking

Resources mentioned in webinar:

https://forums.halfsizeme.com/t/how-to-accurately-track-restaurant-food-video/2581

https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/eating-disorders/expert-q-and-a

https://forums.halfsizeme.com/t/finding-webinars-and-topics/4280/7

https://forums.halfsizeme.com/t/emotional-eating-expectations-and-boundaries-worksheet/234

https://forums.halfsizeme.com/c/subgroups/cruise2020

https://forums.halfsizeme.com/t/hsmc-open-office-hours-application/2836

Filed Under: HSMC Premium Weekly Webinar Tagged With: boundaries, calories, consistency, eating disorder, eating out, emotional eating, exercise, losing weight, Open Office Hours, relationships, track restaurant food, tracking, webinars

308 – Half Size Me Community Weekly Webinar 308

November 19, 2018 by HSM Team

HSMC Weekly Webinars: (Protected Content)

 

Half Size Me Community Members-Only Webinar Banner

 

 

Click here to download the webinar recording for Webinar #308

 

Topics covered:

Andrea –
Discussed how to begin to find her maintenance calories to take a deficit later
How to begin to look at her lifestyle change of having a boyfriend and new social eating and see what she will trim back on to create a calorie deficit
How to focus on calorie averages for the week


Jessica –
Prevent binge eating. She is a runner with 16 weeks of training. Right before a marathon taper week
How to feed her body with consistency and respect on her low volume run days

Filed Under: HSMC Premium Weekly Webinar Tagged With: binge eating, calories, creating a calorie deficit, lifestyle change, maintenance calories, running

300 – Half Size Me Community Weekly Webinar 300

September 23, 2018 by HSM Team

HSMC Weekly Webinars: (Protected Content)

Half Size Me Community Members-Only Webinar Banner

Click here to download the webinar recording for Webinar #300

Topics covered:

How to know if you are losing weight at a certain calorie target
How to communicate with those that push their weight loss opinions on you
How to be confident in your decisions with your weight loss approach
How to know your hierarchy of importance with weight loss

Resources
https://forums.halfsizeme.com/t/i-found-my-tdee/3241
https://forums.halfsizeme.com/t/fool-proof-way-to-find-your-tdee-video/2784
https://forums.halfsizeme.com/t/hsm-course-boundaries-category/247

Filed Under: HSMC Premium Weekly Webinar Tagged With: boundaries, calories, confidence, hierarchy of importance, opinions, tdee, weight loss

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