Eating Routine: Calorie Allotments

To be healthy, i think everyone knows about calorie counting. According to "the powers that be" the average adult needs anywhere from 1750 to 2500 calories a day depending on their personal goals, weight and activity level. One thing that everyone might not know is that how these calories are distributed throughout the day can also affect weight.

All the food we eat is either burned as energy or stored as fat (to be saved and burned later for energy). The concept of allotting calories works because, in theory, you should plan your calories around when you will need energy. In this method, all or most of your food is actually used for energy and less is stored as fat! Once you eat something, it goes through your stomach and small intestine to start the conversion to energy. After you eat, you can expect some energy to be "available" after on 15-30 mins. So, once you eat, after about 30 minutes your body has to decided, "will this energy be used now or shall i save it for later". With this understanding it is much easier how important "when" you eat is.

So lets talk about my actual routine. Well, im actually always changing this, but this is my current system. So my daily allotment of calories is from 1750 - 1850. I'm pretty thin as it is, so im not trying to lose weight, but since im not very active, i don't really need a lot of extra energy (aka potential fat). Ok first off, i always eat 5 to six times a day. I know the traditional thing is to eat 3 big meals, but that's just too much energy at once. I much prefer to eat smaller meals more often.

Here's my plan:
- Breakfast: 400k
- Brunch/Morning Snack: 250k
- Lunch: 400k
- Afternoon Snack: 250k
- Dinner: 300k
- Evening Snack: 250k

In my particular case, you can see that i use more energy in the morning and afternoon than the evening and night. If i was expecting to do something at night like to go bowling or skating or jogging, i would adjust to move more calories to a meal before my activity. With a routing like this, it's so much easier to plan food. When i look at food, i look at it in terms of 100 calories. Like "How much of that can i have for 100 calories". So i have a bunch or preplanned meals for each calorie amount. Like with spaghetti. I know i can have this much for 100 calories, and if my specific meal calls for 300 calories, then i can have 3 100's. Hope that doesn't sound too confusing. lol :D

If you have any questions, just leave a comment. :)

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With Love,
Margaret

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