Have you ever heard the phrase you are what you eat? Well I hate to break it to you, but this indeed is true. Your eating habits have a direct impact on your weight and most importantly your health. If you are feeding your body foods that are fried, fast, and processed you will begin to negatively affect your energy, health, and weight overtime. But, if you are eating whole, well-balanced foods then you are nourishing your body with what it needs to function and reducing your risk for many chronic diseases.
We are heading into 2022 and it’s time to get our eating habits under control. One reason why people fail to take action on truly getting their eating habits in check is because they don’t truly understand how eating affects their weight and what those consequences look like.
So I have taken the time to break down 4 ways that your eating habits can affect your weight so that you have a better understanding of it.
Overeating. If you are someone who has no self control (lol, you know who you are) when it comes to food you are likely overeating. People who overeat generally have no sense for portion size and aren’t too concerned about the quality of the foods that they eat. Unfortunately, this leads to weight gain over time. Weight loss theory simply states that if you eat more calories than you burn then you will gain weight. So eating more than what your body uses daily for energy will result in your body storing excess carbs and fat as fat, which will increase your body fat percentage, which increases your weight, and unfortunately your risk for health complications related to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
So what can you do to improve this? You want to start by knowing how many calories you should be eating a day to maintain or lose weight. You then want to track your food to be sure that you are not eating more calories than you should. This will help you stay on track and prevent overeating.
Take my quiz to find out if you are overeating and learn 3 action steps you can take to correct your eating.
Undereating. If your eating habit of choice is slashing calories this can become problematic overtime. This is not talked about as much as it should. It is actually an alarming health concern, in my opinion. When calories are slashed too low for an extended period of time you will begin to affect hormones that regulate your metabolism. Unfortunately for some women they end up with hypothyroidism, while others spend years trying to balance their hormones back to normal after years of dieting.
Yes, cutting your calories will cause weight loss but the problem comes in when you cut them to a point where your body thinks it’s being starved. When your body reaches this point, it doesn’t have enough energy (calories) to function properly and therefore will hold on to everything that it has. So instead of burning calories it holds on to calories and can cause a weight plateau or even weight gain. On top of this, your body will begin to slow down processes in your body that regulate hormones responsible for your metabolism. Because your body is thinking “I need to slow my metabolism down from burning anything else because I am in survival mode!” So one’s hormones slow down, so to speak. I want to make sure we are clear. CUTTING YOUR CALORIES TOO LOW FOR A LONG PERIOD OF TIME will affect your metabolism, hormones, and weight.
To prevent this you want to follow a basic dieting pattern of: Caloric Deficit → Diet Break → Caloric Deficit → Reverse to maintenance calories → Repeat. This gives your body time to effectively process short periods of time where calories may be lower than normal while also giving it a break from those periods to allow things to return back to “normal”.
Take my quiz to find out if you are undereating and learn 3 action steps you can take to correct your eating
Eating to maintain your weight. This is one of the most heartbreaking things for people who are actively trying to lose weight. Sometimes people “think” that their healthy choices in food are causing weight loss, but in turn they are actually eating to maintain their weight. This is simply because they are eating the same amount of calories that they are burning through physical activity. In order to lose weight you must burn more than you eat. Most people don’t know this because they aren’t tracking their caloric intake. And because of this, they don’t know that their “healthy foods” are too high in carbs/fat or that they’ve eaten enough calories to take them outside of a caloric deficit. So the best way to ensure that your efforts for weight loss are not in vain is to track everything you eat to be sure that you are maintaining a calorie deficit.
Take my quiz to find out if you are actually maintaining your weight instead of losing weight, and learn 3 action steps you can take to correct your eating.
Eating to lose weight. Welp! This is the best eating habit to have, right?!? If you are eating to lose weight then you are winning, girl! Keep doing what you are doing, but don’t fall into either of the three categories above. Continue to be intentional about your nutrition and exercises, keep a positive attitude, and add diet breaks to prevent/slow the progression of a plateau.
Take my quiz to find out if you are really eating to lose weight and learn 3 action steps to help you continue losing weight.
So who is this crazy lady telling me all this about my weight and eating habits? Well I am glad you asked!
Hey! My name is Dr. Tamara Richards and I am board certified clinical pharmacist, nutritionist, wife, and mom of two who understands the struggles of the modern day woman. I help women develop healthier habits without jeopardizing their taste buds or lifestyle by creating customized weight loss plans that help clients create a system to improve their time management, overcome barriers, and improve their diet without crazy restrictions. If you are struggling with eating, working out, or knowing how to tackle making healthier choices click here to apply to work with me. I will teach you how to implement a strategy that will give you control over your health and the confidence to reach your goals. Apply now.
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