Wanna lose weight - eat more calories

Yep, that is what I said, but you need to read the rest of this post before even thinking about eying that pint of Ben and Jerry's. But I do have a lot of people who are close to me who are not exactly skinny (including myself) and I figured I would post this for everyone to look at and make their own conclusions.

Our bodies are extremely adaptable and generally they are smarter than we are. I have been kicking up my mileage, i.e. my calories burned has become much higher. I was finding it rather strange that I was not losing weight and I noticed that muscles and joints were becoming a little "achy". So, I started keeping close track of my calories and noticed that my calorie deficit was too high. Anyways, I won't go too far in to my own details, but I did some searching on the internet and found out that many people who are not athletic also starve their bodies.

You see, when you eat too few calories, you send your body in to "starvation mode" and many things start to happen. Your body starts to shut off some of the lesser functions of your body and it starts to store fat reserves to "save up" for the famine. In addition, it will also start using your muscle to provide fuel, which means you loose muscle mass. Over time, you just eat less, and your body tries to convert more to fat and the cycle just continues.

Before upping your calories, figure out your BMR by following this link. http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ This will tell you how many calories a day your body will use if you did nothing. Then you need to figure out approximately how many extra calories you burn each day by walking, working, etc. There are some sites to get some good ideas, here is one. http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/calories.htm A healthy way to loose weight is to consume about 500 calories fewer than you burn each day. This will give you slow, and healthy, weight loss at about 1 to 1.5 pounds per week and this should not put your body in to starvation mode.

I am not saying go pick up the next tub of ice cream, or even start eating a donut for breakfast. If you decide to eat more calories, please do not eat donuts, or ice cream, find good foods, like banana's, apples, mango's, oranges, etc to increase your calories. No need to lose weight and increase your cholesterol.

Obviously I am not a pro at this, but I am just putting down some of my own experiances and research, and maybe it will be helpful for others.