Eating healthy can be very rewarding. You get to feel great and look great, but what happens when nothing is happening? After years of trying to choose healthier options, you realize that you have gained more body fat than when you started and maybe you are wondering what the heck went wrong!
I'm sure that by now you have probably heard the saying that if you want to lose weight, you have to eat healthy and exercise more, but unfortunately, that’s not the whole story. A few years after I decided to take this fitness thing seriously, I realized that my body plateaued. I was not at a healthy body weight and I never knew what the problem was. For the most part, I ate healthy and exercised. I even went vegetarian for two years, but for some reason I could never get down to my desired body weight. Sometimes, I caught myself making excuses for my muscles and genetics (which was kind of true,) but for how much I worked out, I felt like my body was not at it's best. When I graduated from college, I started to do some research on the foods that I was eating and I was shocked!
The secret behind every meal, every weight loss, maintenance, or weight gain is portion control. In order to be able to maintain your body weight, or lose some inches, you have to be able to give your body the just the right amount of macro nutrients on a daily basis. This amount is very much based on your level of physical activity. An easy way to think about this is thinking about a gas tank. When you put in too much gas, the tank stops taking anymore gas and the remaining spills out. Just like the car, your body uses only what it needs for energy and for daily functioning. The remaining is stored as fats for emergencies and some end up as waste.
What does this all mean?
It means that no matter what you eat, the portion is extremely important which is why healthy foods can actually become unhealthy if consumed in greater amounts than what the body needs.
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