It’s sometimes a fighting battle when it comes to this competition we call fat loss. Through the basics, we shed some body fat while building or retaining muscles, depending on where in the training hierarchy you fall. But one of the best ways to lose weight, is to count your calories. Knowing exactly how much calories one is consuming, helps to keep their weight loss program on track.
But what about those juices? I have seen people drinking their juices in place of the sodas and as awesome as that is, I doubt they realize that that too, needs to be counted. Remember, the reason we count our calories is because we want our body’s metabolic activities to be fueled by the fat we already have stored in our body, rather than using acquired energy from outside sources (e.g food), so counting helps keep this fat loss mechanism on a continued flow. This is also why some people prefer doing a low carbohydrate diet because this encourages even more fat loss because your body’s number one choice for fuel, is carbohydrates. But that’s not the topic of this entry 😛
I know some of you who are reading this, are like “duh”, of course you have to count your juices but then there are some who are still in the dark about this. So keep reading if you already don’t count your juices and to learn why, it’s important to start doing so immediately. Remember knowing is power, from this knowledge you have a more understanding on how to develop and improve your weight loss program!
If you think you are not losing weight properly and that you have your calories in check, where you’re consuming the 500-600 below maintenance, and you’re training 3-5 times a week. Then maybe, there is a hidden culprit to blame; your juices.
Not all of us like drinking water all the time, so we sometimes indulge in the juice product to get something a little more flavored into our diet. But, some of us don’t realize that fruit juices have calories! Remember, to lose weight, it’s basically calories in vs. calories out. Calories is what our body uses, for energy. So think, calories = energy. Our body utilizes these calories/energy for its’ metabolic activities. So every single item you consume, has calories in it unless it says otherwise.
To make this a little more clearer, imagine if you took that actual fruit used in those juices and grind them up in a juicer, that end product is still fruits! I am sure when you’re counting your calories for the day, that apple or orange is added to your caloric counter.
Yet again, I know some people are probably shaking their heads, wondering why I am speaking of this. But, I see this mistake made over and over again. Someone now starting to get into the fitness lifestyle, decides to replace juices for sodas and completely forget that those juices have calories and those juices need to be included in how much calories they have to consume in the day. Not only that but sometimes you have people who have been doing a weight loss program and complain about reaching a plateau and you get the details down and realize they are not including the juices they consume, so once they make this consideration to do just that, they start losing weight again.
Hopefully I have enlightened something for someone out there, and they can adjust their calories appropriately to keep or start losing some weight 🙂