Confessions Of A Personal Trainer

Forgive me body for I have sinned.

So, I just munched down a family bag of chilli tortilla chips and a flapjack.

Nothing wrong there you might think.

But when you flip the packet over and read that there are 737 calories in the bag of chips and 371 calories in the flapjack you soon see the potential “damage” to my waistline.

Total calories for these two snack is 1108, which is a lot. Especially when you consider it probably took me less than 10 minutes to eat. Barely enough time for my stomach to register there was food in it.

If I’d of bought more food I could of kept going. But thankfully I didn’t.

Now, those calories are going to need accounting for unless I want to gain fat.

So, 1108 calories out of my 3000 daily calorie budget still leaves me with 1892 calories to play with for the rest of the day. Which is a comfortable amount of food for me.

However, what if your daily calorie budget is only 2000 calories?

After that little snack you’ve only got 892 calories left.

Go over those and you’ll be in fat gaining territory.

892 divided by 3 meals is less than 300 calories per meal. Proper paupers calories.

So what’s the lesson?

Don’t go shopping hungry. You’ll buy food you don’t need.

Don’t snack mindlessly. It’ll be expansive in your waistline.

All calories count. If you’re trying to lose fat you need to be in a deficit by the end of each day. It doesn’t have to be much. 200-300 calories under your metabolic needs is enough.

But the biggest lesson I hope that you take from this is that even if I blow my calorie budget by the end of the day, do you think I’m going hang my head in shame and beat myself down mentally?

Hell no.

It would be like getting a blow out in the car and then slashing the other tyres because one is broken.

You just wouldn’t do it.

Unless you’re stupid.

And I know you’re not.

So, if you blow your calorie budget, try and pull it back by the end of the day.

If not. Start a fresh tomorrow.

You got this.