How To Eat Properly to Lose Weight

Let's start with a fun fact—you do not need to starve in order to lose weight, and if you are always hungry when you’re "dieting" (my god, I hate that word) then you’re simply not eating enough.

A few years ago I was working in a secondary school, and one of my colleagues was on a diet. She would eat a banana for her morning break, and a small low-fat yoghurt and an apple for her lunch. I asked her what else she ate through the day and she said for breakfast she has a cup of tea and a small bowl of cereal, and for dinner a salad. She then complained that she was hungry all the time which made it hard for her not to snack on unhealthier things, like crisps and pizza (I know, yum).

I didn’t say anything to her about it because at the time I thought this sounded like what a diet is supposed to be. But looking back now, I’m horrified at how little she was eating. Depending upon the brands and exact quantities, that’s around 500 calories. For an entire day. No wonder she was so hungry all the time!

First of all let me point out that I hate the world "diet" because of the negative connotations it carries. To most people, a diet means eating hardly any food, most of it salad and all of it tasteless and unexciting. It means being hungry all the time. It means craving sweet, tasty food but not being able to touch any of it without feeling crippling guilt. It means unenjoyment. A diet is not a good thing.

I do not diet. I eat healthily. And I eat according to the number of calories I need in order to lose weight at a safe, steady rate while still enjoying tasty food and never going hungry. And I eat a salad maybe once a week, if that. I hate salad.

Weight loss is a numbers game, and no matter which way you want to go about it, it’s as simple as calories in versus calories out. If you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. Pure and simple. There are many websites you can use to help you calculate the number of calories you need a day, but a simple way of going about it is taking your weight, in pounds, and multiplying it by 10-12 (depending on your activity level).

For example, I currently weigh 10 stone, which is 140lbs, and I do a lot of rigorous exercise.

140 x 12 = 1680.

That’s 1680 calories a day that I should be eating in order to lose weight.

Let’s take a look at the woman I used to work with who was basically starving herself. I don’t know for definite, but comparing my body shape/type to hers, I would say she weighed around the 11 stone mark. That’s 154lbs.

That means she should have been eating 1540 calories a day. And she was eating around 500.

The average woman burns 2000 calories a day just by existing, and as long as you eat less than that, you are in a calorie deficit and you will lose weight. Find out how many calories you should be eating, and for god's sake eat that many calories.

I know you’re probably thinking "yeah, but the less I eat, the quicker I’ll lose weight," and while that’s technically true, it’s actually because you’ll be losing not only fat, but muscle too! Does that sound like a good idea to you?

Eat less than 1200 calories a day and your body basically goes into starvation mode—there’s a lot of science behind this that will take way too long for me to explain, so just take my word for it when I say its not a good thing. You’re metabolism slows down, and you won’t lose weight, or nowhere near as much as you will if you actually eat.

So next time you go on a diet, ladies, please remember that your body is a well-oiled machine, and the food you feed it is the fuel it needs in order to function properly.

I’ll do a few more detailed pieces on this in the near future, including why eating protein is the best thing ever and why no-carb diets are the devil. But for now I hope this will be at least a stepping stone from that horrible word "dieting" to the wonderfully enjoyable healthy eating.