Have you ever wondered how many calories are enough?
It’s not uncommon to have a warped perspective on how many calories are enough. From body image consciousness to fitness magazines and the U.S. diet culture, the focus is on how little you can eat instead of what you need to eat.
This makes figuring out how many calories you need for your health and weight confusing. Figuring out your calories is even more complicated because you are unique. No one else is like you. Your physical activity, stress levels, sleep, and age differ from anyone else. All those things will impact the calories you need.
If you are older, there are other things to take into account. Undereating your calories becomes less of an issue as your digestion doesn’t work as well as it did when you were younger. Deciding on your calories is improved by aligning with foods that are right for you. You do better with more health-conscious foods, higher portions of whole foods with less processed foods.
Even if you’re younger, your digestion may have its hiccups. Gas, bloating, nausea, fatigue, and weight gain are five symptoms that don’t resolve independently and require your assistance.
All this will impact the calories and types that are best for you to consume. While it may be impossible to determine the exact number of calories you need, it’s a good starting point to begin your journey into learning about yourself. You can take the first pass at estimating how many calories a day are right for you.
Let’s start with what is considered the lowest number of calories to consume each day. The lowest number of calories per day is your “ideal body weight” X 10.
I put “ideal body weight” in quotes because there is so much valid controversy over ideal body weight. Yet, you are just trying to get a starting point on calories, and using this formula can give you a valid starting point.
To get an idea of where to start, check out this body weight calculator and times your “ideal body weight” X 10!
The calories you calculated will be a starting point if you are sedentary and not exercising. If you are tracking your exercise, you know how many calories you are burning and can compensate for that.
Now you are off and running, creating meals using less processed and more whole foods. With an estimate of your daily calories, you can add in the medicinal and healing properties of foods to repair your health symptoms.
Don’t think it can happen?
It can. My mother was the first to show me that every food eaten has different properties that can repair or tear down your health. Back in the ’70’s, my mother’s breast cancer came back. She was stage 3, HER2 positive. The treatments were so aggressive back then. My mother didn’t think she could do it, again.
Instead of Western Medicine, she went to an East Asian Medical Provider in Boston, MA. At that time, I was in high school and understanding that my mother was planning on eating her way back to health was very stressful. Yet, working with him, she learned to pick foods that repaired her health. At the end of three years, she was in complete remission.
It wasn’t just her cancer that had disappeared, her fatigue, her ulcers, her high blood pressure, her constant sense of anxiety had disappeared, also.
She lived an active life for another 40 years, passing away in 2018.
That was my first exposure to a truly holistic approach to wellness. It shook me up. I learned I have more control over my wellness than industry and Western Medicine would have me believe.
If you want to get a feel for what it means to eat foods to repair your health symptoms, check out my Clean Eating playlist on Youtube!
It took me years to find practitioners who still knew and understood foods’ medicinal and healing properties. If you’re looking to supercharge your clean eating by taking it to the next level where you own your health, call the office at 360-841-7558 and see if a three, six, or nine-month plan can work for you.
Are you experiencing digestive issues or struggling with gut health?
Science has taught us space has five dimensions – length, width, height, past, and future. The five dimensions of space are the framework in physics and mathematics that define the properties of the universe. A solution that can address all five dimensions can create a comprehensive solution to your wellness.
I’ve created the five-dimensional solution. I’ve trained in food, supplements, and Western science and help you create your physical framework for wellness. Yet, without your past and future, you are missing how you got here and where you are going. My extensive training in Chinese Herbal Medicine delivers a holistic method to address and repair your past. I marry all this information with the lost art of eating to heal and Chinese Nutritional Therapy to show you how to create your future. Ready to learn more? Check it out here!