Watching the Olympics this summer I found myself thinking about how the athletes balance training, resting, and fueling so they can perform at the highest level.
In my years teaching yoga and strength one of the biggest struggles I face is convincing women to eat more. I find many women relate to food, not as a source of fuel for energy, but as something to be wary of.
At the most basic level, a calorie is simply a unit of energy. That’s all. It’s a number that tells you how much energy a particular food provides to your body.
Even just chilling out binge watching your favorite show, your basic metabolic functions require at least 1,300 calories a day. If you’re doing housework, gardening, exercising, etc. that number may be well over 2,000 calories.
When discussing adequate fueling with my over-50 strength training clients, I find they consistently underestimate how active they are and consequently don’t fuel themselves well enough for their true activity level.
The average women is approximately 5’4” and weighs 170lbs. If she is “lightly active” (a step above “sedentary”) she would burn more than 1,800 calories a day. If that same woman was “moderately active” she would burn 2,055 calories a day.
It’s difficult to not have a skewed relationship with food when we are surrounded by fashion models who average 5’9-6’0” and between 110-130 pounds! (Look at the previous paragraph again and compare that to the average woman.)
In the body politics section of my yoga teacher training program topics such as unrealistic beauty standards, policing of women’s bodies, and fad dieting often arise. In a culture that conflates thinness and worthiness, restrictive eating habits are common.
Being chronically underfueled leaves women feeling sluggish both mentally and physically, and can have a negative impact on metabolism, sleep quality, mood, and immune function.
Here are essential factors to consider when eating to properly fuel yourself:
Here are a couple of resources to help you gauge your actual activity level and exercise intensity: Light, Moderate, and Vigorous Activity and Examples of Physical Activity by Intensity. And, here’s a calculator you can play with to see how many calories you need each day. Chances are you need more calories than you think you do!
It’s time to embrace food as a source of vitality and energy, not an enemy to be feared and presumptively restricted. Chronic underfueling can result in negative impacts on both physical and mental health. By understanding factors that influence realistic calorie requirements you can better fuel yourself in a way that supports and nourishes you and the life you lead.
Do you feel that your food intake supports and nourishes your daily level of activity? – Karin
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