Calories, those little demons (Road to healthy part 2)

Hello once again :)

Picture's form here.

Todays's health topic is Calories and everythoing I feel people should know about them.

Firstly I would like to say, that calories aren't some demonic creatures, who live inside of food and make you fat. If you're within your healthy weight and just wish to be healthier, slim down or tone up, then cutting your calories isn't the answer. The results you get that way are most likely not maintainable.

Every person needs a certain amount of calories just to survive and for our organs to work properly, we don't burn calories only when we work out, but all the time, constantly, right now that you're reading this, you're burning calories.

If you eat more than your daily calorie need, then you'll gain fat and if you eat less, then you'll lose fat, to make it as easy as possible. Sounds great, doesn't it...nope, not to your brain. 

Your brain sees calorie restriction as a possible threat and if it's continued for long periods of time, your body will have to find energy elsewhere: from the lean body mass and that can cause different diseases, heart disease for example. Heart is a muscle and when your not fueling your body well enough then the heart muscles get weak. That is quite an extreme case, of course, but it's a realistic outcome of long term lack of calories and therefore I don't support any diets that are based on cutting your calories. 

(Side note: I'm talking about people, who aren't on a day to day basis eating more than they should be eating. If a person's energy intake is a lot bigger, than it ought to be, then obviously it would be wise to decrease it to where it should be.)

Eating very little and heavy working out at the same time is even worse, because you'll be using up a lot of energy and not really fueling yourself at all, so basicly you're running on empty and eventually it's just not maintainable.

If you're not eating enough, then you're also most likely not getting all the necessary vitamins and minerals and your body in general will not work as well as it could. That again can lead to different health difficulties in the future.

That all being said, eating too much isn't any good either, it's all about finding balance, but I feel like health issues related to being overweight or obese are addressed more, so I won't talk much about it.

That's it for today, I don't want to make these posts too long, until next time,

Kaiela :)

If you wish to read the first part of our health series click HERE.