PHILADELPHIA’S NBC 10 “Be A 10 in 10 Weeks” WITH FUSION CROSS TRAINING – Week 2.5

Every Week Gavin of Fusion sends us an inspirational email to keep us motivated: The “Secret” to fat loss … EAT LESS, no matter what you eat
As I go into the third week of NBC10’s /Fusion Cross Training Philly’s Biggest Loser ChallengeI have to say it’s getting hard. Some of my bad habits are trying to sneak their way back in, but I continue to eat my salads, chicken, and fish. I am not as motivated to work out, but I do because I am beginning to see results. I’ve gone up 2 notches on my belt.

This week Gavin’s email stated:
The key to consuming the proper amount of food/drink for your body composition goals is being able to accurately estimate the caloric content of various foods and drinks. As it turns out your eyes, stomach and emotions on their own are not the best systems for assessing caloric content as you might well know. Our eyes think in size and equate lots of food with lots of calories, which is clearly not always true just think of a massive salad. Finally our emotions don’t think at all, they feel so depending on our mood we will ignore all other systems and either starve or binge. It is only our minds that can really be the judge so we need to arm them with knowledge. (I am an emotional eater, whether I’m happy or sad I think I need to reward myself with something sweet. I’ve been really good the past 2 weeks and have only had two mini choc bars, and 4 peppermint hard candies. Just that is amazing as I was eating bags of raisinets telling myself that sure it’s chocolate but it’s fruit too.)
To truly know your daily calories you could go around with a scale, but ultimately the more sustainable way is to understand the range of calorie densities of different food categories/types and make choices based on that. Lower calorie density foods can fill your plate visually, your stomach with bulk and your body with nutrients without adding a ton of calories. In fact it is nearly impossible to overdo eating whole vegetables and fruits because they are so low calorie and high satiating. Examples of the lowest calorie density food types are natural carbohydrates like veggies, fruits, and whole grains (contain 4 calories per gram). Next on the scale are lean sources of proteins like beans, poultry, fish, non-fat dairy. Proteins also contain 4 calories per gram however they are packed tighter so when you weigh out 4 grams of some common vegetables and 4 grams of chicken you’ll notice a big visual difference (about half as much), which is important to start to grasp in terms of building balanced meals. It’s kind of like books in a library, from the shear size of a Harry Potter book you might think it is really dense and tough to get through, but once you start reading it you find it is light and you can get through it in no time.There several websites and books for calorie contents of foods, try www.thecalorieking.com . Place all of your 100 calorie portions out on the counter and compare them, even take pictures of them. In shear minutes it will change your beliefs about calorie density and embed the reality into your head, giving you a much stronger base of knowledge to start building meals that are calorie and nutrient balanced to achieve your goals.

Once a week we’re a lot a cheat. My cheat day was yesterday after I weighed in and was given the results 2 more lbs, for a total of 7lbs in 17 days. Then I went to Sweet Ending for a 4 oz Reeses/Watermelon Korean Yogurt. Our bodies burn a large number of calories just to function, but to prove how much harder it is to burn up those calories that take us over our requirements look at the following times to burn 1200 calories via exercise: